ASIA
THE AFGHAN CONFLICT: the ICRC on the frontiers of war
Peshawar, Quetta: outposts of the battlefield
Serious fighting continued in Afghanistan in 1985 — a country where the ICRC is not represented. Therefore, assistance work for the victims of the conflict was done across the border in Pakistan. The ICRC has one delega- tion in Peshawar (North West Frontier Province) and one sub-delegation in Quetta (Baluchistan).
In Peshawar, starting in 1981, the ICRC set up an hospital for the Afghan war wounded, a paraplegic centre for Afghan and Pakistani patients and an orthopaedic centre where war amputees are fitted with apparatus.
Another hospital has been in operation in Quetta since 1983. Like the one in Peshawar, it looks after Afghan war wounded.
In 1985, 2,835 patients were admitted to these two hospi- tals and 180 to the paraplegic centre in Peshawar, 433 people were fitted with apparatus and 1,295 orthopaedic components were manufactured.
In addition, the ICRC regularly gave courses both in Peshawar and Quetta on first aid and the basic rules of international humanitarian law for Afghanis who intended to leave Pakistan and return to their country. It is not always easy for these men who are daily faced with the reality of the conflict prevailing in Afghanistan to accept that willingness to respect these rules must take precedence over their own feelings in the matter. All the ICRC can do for the time being is to get its humanitarian message to the interior of Afghanistan in an attempt to
The hospital at Peshawar (Thierry Gassmann)
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AFGHANISTAN
KABUL
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Parachinar
PESHAWAR
ISLAMABAD
Miramshah
Kandahar.
Badini
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Chaman'
⚫QUETTA
PAKISTAN
ICRC DELEGATION
ICRC/PRCS first-aid posts
ensure respect for those who are not, or who are no longer, participating in the fighting. Between March 1984 and December 1985, 5,778 Afghanis took these courses and from March 1982, 642 first aid workers were trained.
Peshawar: dealing with suffering
March
April: fighting raged in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Kunar, Kandahar, Helmand and Herat.
The number of admissions to the ICRC hospitals in Peshawar and Quetta was the highest since June 1981.
July September: on 12 July, 26 war wounded reached Peshawar and a few days later another 24 wounded had to be admitted.
During the last two weeks of August, 140 patients were treated. Steadily increasing demands were made on the Peshawar hospital as more and more wounded arrived, as a result of the exceptionally intensive military operations in Paktia. The hospital's capacity (approximately 100 beds) had already been increased by means of two tents pitched in the courtyard. At the end of August the num- ber of patients had risen to 200. The two surgical teams (one from the ICRC and the other sent by the Finnish Red Cross) and the specialized medical teams from the Red Cross Societies of Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden had to be strengthened.
A plan was immediately put into operation: between 2 and 16 September, 4 surgeons, 5 anaesthetists, 5 operating theatre nurses, 12 nurses, 1 medical co-ordinator and one sanitary engineer arrived in Peshawar (from the Red Cross Societies of Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Nor- way and Sweden). On 6 September work was begun to set up a fully equipped field hospital, placed at the disposal
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