On 28th February, the International Committee of the Red Cross launches an appeal for an additional 12.3 million CHF (10 million Euros) to avert a major humanitarian crisis in the Sahel region.
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) volunteers currently in Homs have started evacuating women and children from Bab Amro, the neighbourhood most affected by the violence in the city. Both ICRC and SARC had arrived to Homs early afternoon today and have been negotiating with the Syrian authorities and the opposition in order to evacuate all persons in need of help without exception.
The ICRC is calling on all sides to agree to a halt in the fighting for two hours each day to allow humanitarian assistance in. The Geneva based organisation is negotiating with the Syrian authorities and with the opposition to try to get agreement to this daily pause in the fighting. " What we want is an immediate halt in the fighting so we can access Homs and the other affected areas to deliver much needed humanitarian aid," says ICRC spokesperson Carla Haddad.
Following the second round of presidential elections in late 2010 where both candidates claimed victory, tension and violence grew into a full-fledged armed conflict in Cote d'Ivoire. In the chaos, hundreds of children lost contact with their families.
After decades of war and neglect, Iraq's health care, water and sanitation services are in a dire state, failing to meet the basic needs of a large part of the population. Despite an improvement in security in some areas, basic services in many places are inadequate.
Ten years on from the start of the present conflict in Afghanistan, fighting is widespread, particularly in rural areas. International troops are starting to withdraw. At the same time, security is further deteriorating and local armed actors are multiplying.
Medical facilities before the conflict were functioning in Tripoli, but access to health care and life saving treatment became very difficult since the city was turned into a battlefield. Dozens of wounded people who urgently needed treatment did not receive it and died. Health-care workers often couldn''t access medical facilities due to the fighting. At the same time, hospitals and local clinics needed adequate medical supplies to be able to treat the many war wounded.
Ahead of The international Day of the Disappeared on the 30th of August, the ICRC is providing new material from Colombia where nearly 50,000 people are officially missing.
Entire villages have been destroyed and health-care centres looted in western Cote d'Ivoire. As an uneasy calm settles, thousands of refugees and internally displaced people want to return home yet there is little to return to.
Attacks on health-care workers and medical facilities in conflicts and violent upheavals across the world are affecting millions, according to a new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The report, presented in Geneva, 10 August 2011, is based on research in 16 countries over 3 years since 2008. This is the first time such an investigation has been conducted on an international scale.
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