The International Committee of the Red Cross warned Wednesday that thousands of Syrian civilians besieged by government and rebel forces alike were in desperate need of aid. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The International Committee of the Red Cross is warning that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating because warm spring weather has led to a surge in violence.
Gherardo Pontrandolfi, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, also appealed on the warring parties to respect civilians caught up in the fighting. Pontrandolfi spoke on Thursday.
So far, April has been the deadliest month this year. According to an Associated Press tally, 186 people — including civilians, security forces and foreign troops — have been killed in violence around the nation. Additionally, more than 150 insurgents have also died, according to the tally.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/Ae2JduQ1aHQ/
By The Huffington Post News Editors
BEIRUT, April 4 (Reuters) – The humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening rapidly with some areas a landscape of “devastation and destruction”, the Red Cross said on Thursday after a month which activists said was the bloodiest yet in the conflict.
About 70,000 people have been killed and millions displaced during the two-year-old uprising, the United Nations says. Civilians have been cut off from water, electricity and life-saving medical supplies, especially in rebel-held areas targeted by air strikes and ballistic missiles.
The Syrian government‘s restrictions on aid convoys have meant most supplies are distributed in government-held areas.
Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said aid workers had been able to do make more trips into opposition-held areas in the past two weeks, indicating Damascus may be softening its stance on convoys into such territory.
He said the workers were “not pleasantly surprised” by what they found in areas accessible for the first time, with the need for food, sanitation, water and medicine increasing.
“We saw devastation and destruction,” he said.
“What we were able to achieve is not enough. The needs are growing exponentially while our ability to react is growing linearly,” he said.
Convoys and volunteers for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent – the ICRC‘s partner in Syria – have been targeted during the civil war by both sides, who are suspicious of the group’s neutrality. Several volunteers have been jailed or killed.
Maurer called for aid groups to be respected. “When we have a convoy on the road from Damascus to any part of Syria it is of the uttermost importance that this convoy is allowed to pass checkpoints and is not shot at,” he said at the end of a three-day visit to neighbouring Lebanon, which has 400,000 Syrian refugees.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that March was the bloodiest month yet in the conflict, with more than 6,000 people killed, a third of them civilians. …read more
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By The Huffington Post News Editors
* 31 detainees participating in hunger strike
* After 11 years in captivity, their future is uncertain
* Efforts to close the camp have stalled
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI, March 26 (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross sent a doctor and another delegate to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo a week earlier than planned because of concern about a growing hunger strike among detainees, an ICRC spokesman said on Tuesday.
About a dozen ICRC representatives were scheduled to make a regular two-week visit to the detention camp on April 1, ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said.
“Because of the current tensions and hunger strike we decided to send a couple of delegates to the island starting this week,” Schorno said. “One is a medical doctor whose job is to follow more specifically the hunger strike.”
Thirty-one of the 166 prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba have joined the hunger strike, said Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the detention operation.
Eleven of them had lost enough weight that they were being fed liquid meals through tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs, and three of those were hospitalized for rehydration and observation, Durand said.
The numbers had risen from 24 hunger strikers, with eight being force-fed a week ago.
Hunger strikes have flared up at the prison camp since it opened in January 2002 to hold men captured in counter-terrorism operations after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The current hunger strike began about seven weeks ago. Military officers, human rights monitors and lawyers representing the prisoners have said it reflects frustration at the failure to resolve their fate.
“Tensions at Guantanamo are certainly related, in our view, to the uncertainty that’s prevailing on the future for the detainees …read more
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A Yemeni security official says an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross was wounded when gunmen opened fire at her car in the country’s capital, Sanaa.
ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr in Geneva confirmed a “security incident” on Tuesday in Yemen that left an employee “slightly injured” but declined to give further details.
The Yemeni official says the female staffer was driving her can when gunmen shot at her. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The woman’s nationality was not immediately known.
Sanaa has seen several assassination attempts targeting government officials and opposition figures as well as attacks on diplomats and foreigners in the political turmoil following the uprising that ousted Yemen‘s long-time ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it will resume visits to detainees in Myanmar’s prisons next week after a hiatus of more than seven years, the latest sign of reform in the once-pariah nation.
Peter Maurer, who heads the Geneva-based organization, announced the change after meeting Myanmar President Thein Sein and other top officials in the Southeast Asian nation this week.
Restrictions imposed by Myanmar’s former junta had prevented ICRC staff from visiting inmates since December 2005. The junta ceded power to an elected government in 2011 that has made democratic reforms since then.
The ICRC oversees the Geneva Conventions for the conduct of war and is mandated by the international community to visit detainees in conflict zones. The organization also visits people detained in other situations of violence, and is sometimes the only link between families and prisoners.
Prior to suspending its work in Myanmar, the group regularly met prisoners at dozens of jails and labor camps nationwide. They checked on inmates’ health and treatment and provided them with soaps and medicines.
Maurer praised the government‘s move to allow unfettered prison access again, welcoming the “positive attitude” of those who made it happen.
“We want to see all prisoners indiscriminately and we want to be able to return to prison,” he told reporters, adding that he expected that to happen next week.
Maurer’s trip was the first of any ICRC president, and during the visit he also met Home Affairs Minister Lt. Gen. Ko Ko, Defense Minister Gen. Wai Lwin and opposition lawmaker Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mauer was due to make a brief trip Thursday to western Rakhine state, which has been torn since last June by ethnic and sectarian violence that has driven more than 100,000 people from their homes. Clashes have pitted the Buddhist Rakhine against a largely stateless Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, who comprise the majority of the displaced.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
