TNAG-1546-FCO40-2110-International-Committee-of-the-Red-Cross-(ICRC)-proposal-to--1986 — Page 9

AFRICA

SOUTH AFRICA: the ICRC in the townships

1985: ICRC activities were stepped up in the main regions of South Africa, including the homelands: its chief task was to establish, renew or strengthen contacts with the branches of the South African Red Cross and at the same time to inform government bodies and leaders of the black movements about Red Cross principles.

The aim was to monitor the situation and to provide max- imum protection to victims of the clashes occurring in the black townships.

In the course of the year, delegates visited the regions of Natal, Kwazulu, Orange, The Cape, Qwaqwa, Kwande- bele, Lebowa, Gazankulu, Kangwane and Venda. Mis- sions were carried out in the townships around Johannes- burg, Port Elizabeth, Durban and East London.

A co-operation programme between the ICRC and the South African Red Cross was finalized in September and was able to get under way at the end of 1985. This programme provides for the recruitment of 50 commu- nity organizers to be based in the main urban areas, after completing a four-week course jointly organized by the

ICRC and the South African Red Cross. Their function will be to expand the activities of the Red Cross and dis- seminate knowledge of its principles throughout the

country.

Twenty-two years of visits to security detainees

The ICRC has been working in South Africa since 1963. For more than 22 years now, its delegates have been visit- ing sentenced security detainees. The annual series of pri- son visits took place between 2 and 24 September; the ICRC had access to nine places of detention, where its delegates saw 309 sentenced prisoners and seven people detained under Section 28 of the Internal Security Act.

The ICRC is still making every effort to obtain access to all people detained for security reasons, in particular administrative detainees and detainees under interroga- tion, prisoners awaiting trial and prisoners condemned to death. Many approaches have been made with a view to visiting people detained in connection with the proclama- tion of a state of emergency back in July 1985.

ANGOLA: seasonal but permanent emergency

Angola: ten years of unrest, ten years of insecurity, attacks and looting, with civilians directly affected. In the provinces of Huambo and Bié (known as the Planalto region) and Benguela, the ICRC is con- ducting a food and medical aid programme for some 150,000 displaced persons. This programme is unusually complex since, on the Planalto, mal- nutrition is seasonal; moreover, needs discovered by the delegates may vary considerably from one area to another in this region. Supply problems transporting aid from the coast to Huambo, Kuito and all their dependent villages and safety problems are particularly acute.

Distributions, storage, distributions

From January to June the ICRC distributed almost 7,000 tonnes of food, aiding 100,000 to 128,000 recipients each month.

At the end of June the nutritional state of the people affected had improved, thanks to the harvest and the assistance supplied, so it was possible to reduce distribu- tions for a time; priority was then given to preparing programmes for the next difficult period, expected to begin in September.

Between July and September, stocks of relief supplies were built up again: the operation was possible thanks in particular to two large transport aircraft, which made 405 flights to carry almost 4,000 tonnes of goods from

2

Luanda

ANGOLA

Luena

Lobito

Benguela

Kuito

Huambo

Namibe

Lubango

N'Giva

Luanda, Namibe and Benguela to the Planalto, the com- munities then being supplied by light aircraft from Huambo and Kuito or, in a few rare cases, by rail. Over this period the number of recipients ranged from 20,000 to 37,000. At the same time the ICRC devised a seed