In addition, almost 11,800 consultations were given by ICRC medical teams on the Planalto and 148,000 by the Angolan staff. Medicines and medical equipment worth a total of Sw.fr. 534,000 were supplied to the hospitals and dispensaries in the region.
At the orthopaedic centre in Bomba Alta 514 patients were fitted with apparatus and 2,400 orthopaedic compo- nents were manufactured.
Repatriation under
the auspices of the ICRC
For the first time in three years the ICRC organized the repatriation of seven Angolan refugees from Namibia in August.
Three South African sailors captured in March in Namibe, in the province of Mocamedes, were released and repatriated on 22 August.
BURKINA FASO
Application of the Geneva Conventions
On 25 December hostilities broke out along the border between Burkina Faso and Mali. The next day both par- ties claimed to have taken prisoners.
In Bamako, the capital of Mali, an ICRC delegate visited 16 Burkinabe prisoners of war on 30 December in accor- dance with the Geneva Convention relative to the treat- ment of prisoners of war, and two Malian civilians and two prisoners of war were visited by another delegate on 31 December in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.
The lists of Burkinabe and Malian prisoners were ex- changed a few days later.
Surveys were immediately conducted in the border regions of both countries. In Burkina Faso, 4,000 dis-
MALI: "the poor at war"
placed persons in the province of Soum were in need; the ICRC set up a limited aid programme for them which included the distribution of food, clothing, blankets, soap and medical assistance. The distributions were due to be made early in 1986. In Mali, the ICRC decided to supply medical assistance to two government hospitals and to a Mali Red Cross dispensary.
Right from the outbreak of the fighting, the authorities and the National Red Cross Societies of both countries gave every assistance to the ICRC to enable it to carry out its humanitarian mission. For its part, the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies provided support by placing at the ICRC's disposal its administrative facilities and medical personnel based in Mali and Burkina Faso in connection with the assistance activities it is carrying out in the Sahel.
Massawa
Asmara
ERITREA
GONDAR
TIGRE
Assab
Dessie
WOLLO
Addis Ababa
ETHIOPIA
Famine in ETHIOPIA
main distribution points
The ICRC has been active continously in Ethiopia since 1977, and since 1983 it has steadily increased the volume of its assistance activities, conducted jointly with the Ethiopian Red Cross (Joint Relief Operation: JRO) for the victims of unrest and drought in Eritrea and Tigray. In January 1984, 31,400 people received assistance from the JRO. Successive surveys conducted during the year rev- ealed needs of a 'magnitude never previously encountered.
In January 1985 the ICRC raised the amount of food aid for victims of the drought and the conflict to 5,000 tonnes per month, which benefited 370,000 people in the provinces of Eritrea, Tigray, North Wollo and Gondar, the regions where civilians are starving. The situation results from the combination of insecure conditions in the north of Ethiopia, the almost total lack of rain for more than two years and immeasurable difficulties of transporting relief supplies in this mountainous country of valleys and plateaux where the infrastructure is almost non-existent.
Yet all the surveys made by the delegates in this area indi- cated the absolute necessity of further increasing the ton- nage of food for distribution, in order to bring aid to as large a number of victims as possible: there were 800,000 people to be fed and this meant distributing some 10,000 tonnes of food monthly.