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''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.
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.
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.
In June 2007, the Israeli authorities announced the suspension of family visits for Palestinians from Gaza who were being held in Israel. This decision, which was made a year after Palestinian armed groups captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, deprives both the detainees and their relatives of an essential lifeline, and cuts detainees off from the outside world. In the past four years, over 700 families from Gaza have been prevented from seeing their detained relatives.
2010 to 2011 have seen a major series of crises which have affected ever increasing numbers of people. Demand for humanitarian assistance has reached an unprecedented level at a time when long term conflicts continue unabated, according to the ICRC's Annual Report launched in Geneva today (26th May 2011).
As a result of the recent and ongoing fighting in Libya, unexploded weapons left from the conflict are a major hazard for the country's civilian population. Unexploded ordnance and armoured vehicles, including rockets, shells and mortars, are strewn across public places and residential areas in Misrata, Ajdabiya and Benghazi. The risk for civilians is high.