On Monday April 2nd the release of 10 soldiers and police members held by the FARC-EP will start. The men have been held for up to 14 years without contact with the outside world, The International Committee of the Red Cross is facilitating this operation after agreement between the parties involved.
Women from opposing sides of the conflict unite to find their missing husbands. When the armed conflict in Nepal ended in 2006, some 17,000 people were dead and 3,100 reported to the ICRC as missing by their families. Today, while the fate of many is known, over 1,400 people are still on ICRC's list of missing persons.
The International Committee of the Red Cross'' Middle East spokesperson Hicham Hassan made the following statement on 2nd March 2012.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent teams have not been allowed to enter the neighbourhood of Baba Amr in Homs.
The International Committee of the Red Cross''s spokesperson Carla Haddad made the following statement on 1st March 2012
Geneva (ICRC) - ICRC spokesperson Carla Haddad Mardini confirms that today aid has reached Hama, a town in west central Syria badly affected by the fighting, "they have food for around 12,000 people, they have blankets, hygiene kits, the food should last for one month" says the ICRC.
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.
Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers, working in completely unpredictable situations, do not hesitate to put their own lives at risk to save the lives of others. After one of them lost his life a few months back evacuating an injured person in an ambulance, his fellow volunteers became more determined than ever to continue to perform their life-saving tasks. That kind of commitment is usually hard to make, since each of the volunteers has a family, a mother and a father, and children. This series of unique interviews was filmed with Red Crescent volunteers, giving an insight into their hopes, fears and motivation.
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