नंदैन
Relief distributions in El Salvador (Thierry Gassmann)
Assisting 100,000 people every month
Every month, some 100,000 people in the central and eastern parts of El Salvador receive ICRC aid. Most of them had to abandon their villages to escape the fighting and have settled in less troubled regions. Others are vil- lagers cut off inside the combat zones the conditions of deprivation which they already knew have been made even worse by the conflict. There are also families whose children are suffering from malnutrition. Altogether 10,000 tonnes of food and relief supplies were distributed in 1985.
Medical consultations and education in hygiene: curative and preventive medicine.
The ICRC is running a large medical aid programme in the country, where the conflict affects the medical infra- structure and the population's state of health.
The two main problems encountered by the ICRC in the field are malnutrition and diseases caused by polluted water and by poor conditions of hygiene. To remedy this the ICRC is conducting a large-scale hygiene education programme and supplying necessary medical assistance. In the central and eastern zones, medical/nutritional teams visit the villages affected by the fighting; generally these teams consist of four Salvadorean doctors, a den- tist, a doctor and four nurses from the ICRC, three public health inspectors, one nutritionist, and, in the central zone, two Salvadorean Red Cross relief workers. Every month some 5,500 consultations are given.
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NICARAGUA
Visits to detainees
Members of the former National Guard imprisoned when the Somoza era ended, civilians who collaborated with the former regime, people arrested after the new govern- ment had been set up and accused of counter- revolutionary activities or of offences against State secur- ity, prisoners captured during military operations: in 1985, 3,748 people were visited by the ICRC in places of detention under the jurisdiction of the National Prison Service in Nicaragua. Regular visits were made to the Tipitapa and Zona Franca prisons in the capital, as well as to places of detention in the provinces.
Atlantic Coast:
assistance to the civilian population
In co-operation with the Nicaraguan Red Cross, the ICRC is running an assistance programme along the Atlantic coast where the civilian population finds itself cut off from all supply sources because of armed con- frontations between government forces and counter- revolutionary organizations.
The programme covers the needs of approximately 10,000 people, most of whom are Miskito Indians displaced from their villages along the Rio Coco, on the border with Honduras, since 1981. Two boats transport relief supplies from Puerto Cabezas, in the province of Zelaya Norte, and from Bluefields, in the province of Zelaya Sur. Because of the geography of the area, aid cannot be deli- vered by other means.
Nicaragua: detainees write messages to their families (Roland Bigler)