2023-12-29 06:34:45
– What is the ICRC doing for Hamas hostages?
Letters from readers
Published today at 7:34 a.m.
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Geneva, December 27
Officially, the “mission” of the Red Cross “is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflicts and other situations of violence, and to provide them with assistance. The ICRC also strives to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening universal humanitarian law and principles.”
But, today, has this “mission” been fulfilled? “Protecting the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflicts and other situations of violence and providing them with assistance is not often implemented. Indeed, the real victims of conflicts are not protected and we do not provide them with assistance… I am thinking in particular of these 240 hostages kidnapped and taken with violence to the Hamas tunnels in Gaza on October 7, 2023… Since then, a certain many of them were released, but they were all in a deplorable state; some even died in detention…
“How is it possible that, three months after the start of the conflict, this humanitarian organization has still not managed to do its work?”
What has the Red Cross done to “protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflicts and other situations of violence, and to provide them with assistance”? Nothing… These hostages are being held without the right to decent food. They cannot take a shower, receive very little drinking water, do not receive the medical care they need (we are thinking of the very elderly and young children), they have always worn the same clothes for almost three month… Ms. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger (Switzerland), current president of the ICRC, declares that they are not given the opportunity to help the hostages. Given the political weight of the Red Cross today, one wonders how it is possible that, three months after the start of the conflict, this “humanitarian” organization has still not managed to do its job?
This vaguely reminds me of an official Red Cross report from November 22, 1944 in which we read that the ICRC visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. In this report intended for an American minister, the author of the report claims to have not “discovered any facilities for the extermination of civilian detainees”. The Red Cross should probably offer glasses to its employees to see the reality on the ground…
Luc Henrist, pastor
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