The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: For the past year, hundreds of thousands of families left homeless
by the ongoing violence have hunkered down in one of the several camps which now form neighbourhoods in the capital of Bangui. It has been a year of intense hardship with little access to food, clean water, education and health care. Many want to return home, however, the continuing insecurity and a feeling of hopelessness keep them firmly rooted where they are. Rebuilding will not be an easy task. Violence continues and Red Cross volunteers, tasked with providing assistance to 150,000 people in 23 of the hardest hit regions, are often prevented from working.
IRAQ: As a result of the recent widening of the conflict in Iraq, many more people – numbering in the hundreds of thousands – have been affected. Difficulties of access notwithstanding, the ICRC has been striving to assist displaced people throughout Iraq, and the communities hosting them. Since the beginning of the year, over 300,000 people have received essential aid. Several relief operations have been carried out across front lines to take food, water, and other basic items to people, and essential medical supplies to the wounded and the sick.