Weekly Worldwide Wrap-Up

Welcome to the Weekly Worldwide Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It’s a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work…

SOUTH AMERICA: La Niña has brought heavy rain fall over the past four months that continues to cause severe flooding and landslides in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. The weather has damaged crops and roads across the region, leaving many communities isolated and seriously affecting the livelihoods of some 800,000 people.  Red Cross societies, in cooperation with local governments and with support from the IFRC, are providing disaster relief assistance by distributing food parcels, hygiene kits, and 56,000 mosquito nets.

HAITI: The ICRC, which has visited detainees in Haiti continually since 1994, is engaged in a huge effort to help authorities address the problems stemming from prison overcrowding and poor conditions. The ICRC is training prison medical workers in controlling the diseases that are most common in detention and in the management and use of medicine.

LIBERIA: After the post-electoral violence in Ivory Coast, thousands of Ivorians took refuge in Liberia.  Liberian authorities detained some of them, and the ICRC has been working to monitor detainee’s conditions and seek their release. Earlier this month 69 nationals were released from an internment camp and the ICRC transported them to a refugee camp near the Ivorian border.

VIETNAM: As cases of hand, foot and mouth disease continue to rise to record levels in Vietnam, the IFRC and Vietnam Red Cross are gearing up for a widespread public education campaign on how to prevent the disease through better hygiene. The campaign will be conducted with the support of almost 5,400 community volunteers trained by the Red Cross. They will target more than 752,255 people in 13 provinces.


 
GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

PHOTO:
Relief efforts of the Ecuadorian Red Cross.

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