What kind of work does the ICRC in Azerbaijan do?

Baku / 17.11.17 / Turan: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), being a neutral and impartial humanitarian organization, provides assistance to victims of armed conflicts within its mandate and implements a number of projects in Azerbaijan. On 17 November, a group of journalists were told about these projects at an information briefing in the ICRC Baku office.

One of the activities of the organization is to ensure the security of the front-line communities, by assisting in the creation of shelters, the protection of houses by changing the location of windows, erecting protective walls. Since 2011, 90 families have been assisted in Terter, Tovuz, Gazakh, Goranboy and Agdam regions. In the first half of this year, 600 people were sheltered, where the population could hide during the shelling. Vaults are created in schools.

About 3,000 people, with the help of the ICRC, were able to safely deal with crops, harvesting,

1080 people have improved the water supply through the ICRC program. 120 families received economic assistance.

One of the main directions of the ICRC is the visit of detainees in the context of the Karabakh conflict. The ICRC regularly visits them, exchanges letters with their relatives. The names of those visited, according to the rules of the organization, are not disclosed. The ICRC does not release detainees, but mediates the release and return of detainees. The ICRC pays special attention to respecting the dignity of detainees and providing them with correspondence from relatives.

International humanitarian law protects detainees from the "curiosity of the crowd".

This rule was adopted after the Second World War, when prisoners were taken to the towns, exposing for public inspection. Now this is no longer. However, in modern conditions, other methods are used - the demonstration of prisoners on television and the Internet, forcing them to give evidence. The ICRC strongly stresses the need not to disclose information about detainees of a personal nature, to refrain from showing their photos and videos. An important activity of the ICRC is the search for missing persons. The ICRC has updated the lists of missing persons as a result of the Karabakh conflict 4 times - 1995, 1997, 2004 and 2015.

According to the latest data, the total number of missing persons is 4,500 people, including 3,700 from the Azerbaijani side. 80% of the total number of missing persons are military.

The ICRC is focused on the fate of Azerbaijani women and children caught up in Iraq in connection with the involvement of heads of families in terrorist activities. ICRC representatives visited 1300 people in Iraq from 20 countries, including Azerbaijan. All the information received, the ICRC shared with the government of Azerbaijan.

Within the framework of the mandate, the ICRC visits detention facilities. In the first half of the year, 38 visits were made to 19 detention centers to check conditions of detention and treatment of prisoners. -06C-