This Weekly Worldwide Wrap-Up is courtesy of Scott Waggoner, from Cross Blog: Award-winning Red Cross news and views from Oregon and beyond
Welcome to the Weekly Worldwide Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…
PAKISTAN: Following the brutal murder of Khalil Rasjed Dale, a health program manager working for the ICRC, the organization is reviewing its presence and activities in Pakistan. The ICRC has put on hold its activities carried out from offices in Peshawar and Karachi, with the operations in Balochistan already frozen in the aftermath of the incident. In the coming weeks, the ICRC will announce a decision on its future presence and set-up in Pakistan.
SOUTH SUDAN: Since the beginning of the year, the ICRC has stepped up its efforts to respond to mounting humanitarian needs in South Sudan. Needs increased further in early April when hostilities erupted along the border with Sudan. The ICRC, in cooperation with the newly recognized South Sudan Red Cross, is striving to help people affected by armed violence in South Sudan by supporting health-care system, visiting detainees, promoting humanitarian law, and assisting approximately 20,000 newly displaced individuals.
NEPAL: When the armed conflict in Nepal ended in 2006, around 17,000 people were dead and 3,100 reported to the ICRC as missing. While the fates of many are now known, there are still more than 1,400 people on the ICRC’s list of missing persons that continue to be investigated. In the places where the ICRC works, it has been seeking for decades to forestall disappearances, restore family links when they have been broken, and ascertain the whereabouts of missing people.
BURKINA FASO: In a remote rural Burkina Faso community, the Burkinabe Red Cross Society has set up two women’s groups with community gardens where they grow vegetables that provide a lifeline for families struggling with severe hunger. Up to 23 million people across the Sahel region are facing severe hunger due to frequent droughts. The Burkinabe Red Cross Society has been focused on food security for eight years with support from the Spanish Red Cross, training communities how to grow vegetables outside of the usual crop production season.
GLOSSARY:
ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies