JERUSALEM — A coalition of Catholic aid agencies lost contact with the Caritas team in Baghdad, Iraq, following the bombing of a communications center, a Catholic Relief Services spokeswoman said.

"We haven't had contact with Baghdad for three days," the spokeswoman, Franne Van der Keilen, told Catholic News Service March 31 during a telephone interview from Amman, Jordan.

"We'd like to establish contact to at least know how our staff is doing and what the situation is like on the ground," she said.

The aid agencies have remained in sporadic contact with Caritas teams in other parts of Iraq, said Van der Keilen, regional information manager for the Middle East and North Africa.

Caritas Iraq has more than 300 employees and volunteers spread across the country, she said.

"Since the bombing there has been no possibility to establish contact," she said. "Our main concern now is that we don't have information."

In addition to CRS, Caritas Iraq and Caritas Jordan, the Catholic coalition in Amman includes the British Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, known as CAFOD, and the Irish bishops' Trocaire.

There are 14 aid centers operating through Caritas Iraq; they include eight in the cities of Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul, said Van der Keilen.

"All the centers were operational and our staff and volunteers were going out on a daily basis to assess the damage and tend to the mildly injured when the situation allowed," she said.

In Baghdad, 1,000 of 2,000 first aid kits that had been sent to Iraq by CRS have been distributed, she said.

The reports CRS had been receiving from staff members were brief and factual, she said.

"There was just one phone call to see if everybody was OK and to see what the needs are. We just spoke about the basic facts and the basic needs in the different centers," Van der Keilen said. "We can only imagine what the situation is like."

In the southern city of Basra the main needs were for clean water, she said. A supply of chlorine pills was sent to purify the water, she added.

In the North, families were beginning to flee Mosul to Karakosh in the East, creating a need for mattresses, blankets and sheets, Van der Keilen said.

Meanwhile, coalition staff in Amman prepared to cross into Iraq if and when the situation allows it to provide more intensive assistance, she said.

"We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best," Van der Keilen said.

CRS, in partnership with Caritas, has helped train 45 volunteers to work in two U.N.-run refugee camps in Jordan near the Iraqi border. The volunteers are trained in refugee camp management, humanitarian standards and international protocol for refugees and displaced people. More volunteers are expected to be trained in the future, said a CRS statement.

Though the training project is being organized through the Catholic parishes in Jordan, volunteers have come from Christian and Muslim communities, she said.

Jordan's bishops approved the use of church premises in Amman to shelter a potential 2,000 Iraqi refugees. Caritas Jordan has the capability to provide mattresses, blankets and clothes as well as food rations for these people for up to six months, the statement said.

As of now there has not been any attempt by Iraqi refugees to cross into Jordan, Van der Keilen said, but the United Nations estimates that 60,000 third-country nationals and 34,000 Iraqi refugees might eventually turn up at the camps.

"Right now the trend we are actually seeing is of Iraqi refugees already in Jordan crossing the border into Iraq to be with their families there," she said. "It is the opposite of what we expected."

Some 300,000 Iraqi refugees live in Jordan and are assisted by Caritas Jordan.