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Red Cross visits Iraq and Kurdistan
prisoners
7.12.2007
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The
International Committee of the Red Cross says it has
carried out its first visits to detainees held by
Iraq.
December
7, 2007
GENEVA - The International Red Cross has made
its first visit to detainees of the central Iraqi
government since the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, a
spokeswoman said Thursday
The ICRC president, Jakob Kellenberger, said Red
Cross delegates had visited prisoners held near
Sulaimaniyah in Kurdistan region on 'northern Iraq'
in October.
The visit took place at the beginning of October at
Fort Suse, a prison in Iraq's semiautonomous
Kurdistan region once run by U.S. forces but now
under the control of Iraq's central government, said
Dorothea Krimitsas of the International Committee of
the Red Cross.
"We were able to meet a certain number of detainees
privately to have talks with them in order to
monitor their detention conditions and treatment,"
she said.
Under the Geneva Conventions on the rules of
warfare, the ICRC must monitor conditions for
prisoners of war and other detainees.
Krimitsas said some 1,700 detainees were listed as
being held in Fort Suse, and a team of ICRC
delegates was able to choose which ones they wanted
to interview, without interference.
She said the Red Cross hopes to revisit the prison —
"quite a big detention facility" — and to work out a
comprehensive agreement with the Iraqi government
for access to all places of detention.
The ICRC says it currently has access to about
20,000 detainees held by U.S.-led forces and 1,500
to 2,000 detainees held by the Kurds in the north.www.ekurd.net
It has yet to work out
agreements to visit detainees held in Iraq's Sunni-
and Shiite-controlled areas.
The neutral agency disclosed the visit while
announcing that Iraq has overtaken Sudan as its most
expensive conflict.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said the agency's
budget for 2008 is the highest ever at more than
$830 million — nearly $80 million higher than last
year, the previous record high.
Kellenberger said the ICRC was appealing for
governments and other donors to give some $95
million for Iraq and $94 million for Sudan.
The appeal reflects ICRC plans to increase badly
needed drinking water supplies in Iraq as well as
step up medical and other aid to Iraqis displaced by
fighting, he said.
AP
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