ICRC News 17 / 07.05.97

ICRC News 17 / 07.05.97


RWANDA 
ICRC PLAYS PIVOTAL ROLE
FOR UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN 

Close to 1,100 unaccompanied children were returned to Rwanda from the 
Kisangani region in the first six days of the airlift that began on April 
30. The ICRC is processing all the information concerning these children 
as part of efforts by several agencies to ensure that they are reunited 
with their families as quickly as possible. Because unaccompanied 
children are a priority for the airlift, they constitute roughly a third 
of the returnees now arriving in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

Working together with Save the Children (UK) and the UNHCR, the ICRC is 
coordinating the registration of the these children, the vast majority of 
whom are old enough to provide information about their families and 
location of their former homes. It also checks its database for any 
additional information about their identity or family. Using its network 
of contacts throughout Rwanda, the ICRC ensures that they are placed in 
orphanages in their home areas until they can be reunited with their 
loved ones. ICRC field staff are fully engaged in the effort to locate 
their relatives and arrange reunification.

Following the massive return of Rwandan refugees from Goma and Tanzania 
in December 1996, over 80% of the 10,000 unaccompanied children 
registered by the ICRC were reunited with their families within three 
weeks.

Further information: Bernard Barrett, ICRC Kigali, Tel. ++250 77 344
Rolin Wavre, ICRC Geneva, Tel. ++41 22 730 28 76


CHEMICAL WARFARE
A RELIC OF HISTORY?

The first Conference of States party to the Chemical Weapons Convention 
opened in The Hague on Tuesday 6 May. The primary task of the Conference 
is to set up the new Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 
(OPCW), an agency with some 500 staff, including inspectors to monitor 
government compliance with the Convention's provisions.

Following the widespread use of chemical weapons in the First World War 
the ICRC protested "with all the force at our command" against this means 
of waging war and called for its prohibition. If chemical warfare were 
not outlawed, the International Committee foresaw "a struggle which will 
exceed in barbarity anything which history has known so far". The ICRC's 
appeal, together with widespread public revulsion at the use of poison 
gas, led to the adoption of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the use of 
chemical and bacteriological weapons. 

Though the use of chemical weapons was outlawed in 1925, there have since 
been confirmed reports of their use in a small number of cases. The ICRC 
hopes that the Convention's entry into force and the establishment of the 
OPCW will ensure that chemical warfare becomes a relic of history. It 
therefore urges all States that have not yet done so to adhere to the 
Chemical Weapons Convention at the earliest possible opportunity. It also 
calls upon the States party to the Biological Weapons Convention to 
develop an effective mechanism to monitor compliance with that treaty's 
provisions in order to ensure that biological warfare is similarly 
averted.

Further information: Peter Herby, ICRC Geneva, Tel. ++ 41 22 730 27 29
Stuart Maslen, ICRC Geneva, Tel. ++41 22 730 25 33


For any information you may need on Thursday 8 May (national holiday) or 
the weekend of 10-11 May 1997, please call Rolin Wavre, duty press 
officer, on: 079 357 15 24 (mobile)