Detainees

With the consent of the national authorities, the ICRC continues to visit detention centres run by the interior ministry; it visited 27,092 detainees in jails across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered-Kashmir.

Through its tracing and Red Cross message services, the ICRC enables people in Pakistan to keep in touch with their relatives detained in the country, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. In these places detainees and their families in Pakistan exchanged over 2,000 Red Cross messages in the period under review. The ICRC now offers Pakistani families and their relatives detained at Bagram detention centre the opportunity to communicate via video phone. It offers detainees in Guantanamo and their families the opportunity to communicate by phone.

Medical assistance

The ICRC continued to assist people injured in fighting in Afghanistan and adjacent regions. Over 1,000 patients benefited from ICRC medical services and other support offered to eight hospitals in Bannu, Tank, Abbottabad, Peshawar and Quetta. The ICRC also provided medical supplies to hospitals treating conflict victims in Sadda and Parachinar regions and trained 180 people in first aid.

The organization maintains its physical rehabilitation services for the disabled in conflict- or earthquake-affected areas. At its physical rehabilitation centres in Quetta, Peshawar and Muzaffarabad, over 2,000 patients were treated, fitted with 930 prosthetics and orthotic devices and given 55 wheelchairs.

One of the centres, the Pakistan Institute for Prosthetic and Orthotic Sciences (PIPOS) in Peshawar, uses the ICRC polypropylene technology to manufacture the full spectrum of orthopaedic appliances. It fit 318 patients referred by the ICRC with prosthetic and orthotic appliances, and referred 171 Afghan patients to the ICRC physical rehabilitation centre in Jalalabad.

The Home Care Project in Peshawar meets the needs of people suffering from spinal cord Injuries. It provides patients with treatment in their home environment, thereby helping them preserve their dignity and optimize their functional independence. Assistance includes physiotherapy assessment and treatments, gait training, orthotic devices, wheelchairs, walking aids, toilet chairs and other equipment. The ICRC registered new 86 patients and assisted 133 during the period under review.

People affected by the earthquake in 2005

The ICRC continues to carry out reconstruction work for communities in Neelum and Jhelum valleys in Muzaffarabad District, devastated by the earthquake in 2005. It also provides assistance in the form of micro-economic initiatives, livelihood and water and habitat programmes.

Livelihood programmes

Concentrating on monitoring certain activities carried out in 2007-2008, the ICRC:

• distributed 960 grafted walnut saplings to 192 families in villages in Muzaffarabad; subsequently carried out an evaluation of the of the saplings, which showed a 70% success rate
• found that seven out of nine water mills it had repaired previously were still functional, while two were not, owing to low water table
• stablished that the milk production and survival rates of cows and calves distributed in 2007 as part of an ICRC/German Red Cross livestock project met the ICRC’s expectations
• coached 37 community animal health workers it had trained and provided with equipment in 2006-07 to treat animals in the areas where it had distributed livestock; confirmed that the population served by the workers was satisfied with their services
• confirmed that sessions on artificial insemination it conducted in 2007 for technicians were paying off because they provided efficient and fair-priced services that were crucial in sustaining the livestock project
• trained 25 beneficiaries of ICRC micro-economic projects in business management and awarded 22 grants for such projects; established that most beneficiaries not only maintained their businesses, but expanded their income-generating activities
• distributed tarpaulins to nearly 600 refugee families from Indian-administered-Kashmir following flooding in their camps.

The ICRC finished constructing 40 rural water schemes, bringing to over 140 the number of villages it supplied with safe water. Work included the installation or rehabilitation of over 500 km of pipelines. In addition the organization completed the construction of 11 irrigation schemes serving over 8,000 people.

In Gari Dupatta and Hattian Bala, in Muzaffarabad District, the organization finished restoring two small urban water-treatment plants, extensively damaged by the earthquake and resultant landslides. It did this by constructing a sedimentation tank and reconstructing a pipeline. It also supplied pipes and other materials to help with the operation and maintenance of the plants, which now provide safe water to some 50,000 people.

Cooperation with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society

The ICRC works closely with its partners in the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, particularly the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The ICRC supported the PRCS in organizing courses on tracing for the volunteers and staff of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Quetta state branches.

With ICRC funding, the PRCS Azad Jammu and Kashmir state branch launched a programme to raise public awareness of basic hygiene in communities where the organization has built water-supply facilities. In its first phase, the programme reached some 31,500 people in 43 villages in Muzaffarabad District.

With the support of PRCS volunteers from Azad Jammu and Kashmir state, the ICRC collected 575 cases of mines victims throughout the districts adjacent to the Line of Control.

With ICRC financial support, the PRCS celebrated World Red Cross and Red Crescent day. The Sindh branch used the occasion to distribute first-aid kits to traffic police.

Promotion of international humanitarian law

The ICRC continues to maintain and strengthen contacts with the national authorities as it seeks to promote international humanitarian law (IHL) and gain support for its activities. It supports and assists the armed forces in integrating IHL into their doctrine and training and endeavours to strengthen knowledge and respect for IHL among other sectors of the society. To this end in the period under review the ICRC:

• conducted 12 IHL sessions and courses at key training military establishments
• sponsored 2 professors to participate in the 12th South Asian teaching session on IHL held in India
• conducted an IHL course for lawyers, judges and State officials in Islamabad
• held 2 seminars on IHL and Islamic law at International Islamic University, Islamabad and in Madrassah Islamia, Palandri
• sponsored 3 students to represent Pakistan in the Jean Pictet international IHL moot-court competition in Switzerland
• held an IHL session and a roundtable on reporting in armed conflicts, for the media; announced awards for a journalists’ competition on the impact of media on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts
• organized a seminar on detention for prison staff
• conducted an IHL session for the hierarchy of the PRCS.