Karabakh leader urges Red Cross to pay more attention to refugees’ needs
Arminfo, Yerevan
11 Feb 05
Stepanakert, 11 February: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic [NKR], Arkadiy Gukasyan, today received Mireille Pinard,
head of the representative office of the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) in Stepanakert.
During the meeting, Pinard familiarized the president with the work
carried out in 2004, the press service of the NKR president told
Arminfo news agency. She said that employees of the Karabakh office
of the Red Cross last year repeatedly visited prisons with the aim
of familiarizing themselves with the conditions in which prisoners
are held and their state of health. The local office of the ICRC has
also implemented a programme to restore medical stations in various
villages of the republic and to provide them with the necessary
medical equipment and medicines.
Pinard said that the ICRC completed a programme on the construction of
playgrounds for children in various population centres of the republic
in 2004. Thus, there are about 40 playgrounds in the villages of
Nagornyy Karabakh at the moment. The Red Cross has also rendered
humanitarian aid to the socially-needy strata of the population.
[Passage omitted: The ICRC is also implementing other programmes]
In turn, noting the importance of the Red Cross’s mission in Nagornyy
Karabakh, Arkadiy Gukasyan called on this organization to speed up
its activities in various directions and proposed solving the most
topical problems with joint efforts. At the same time, he asked the
representative office of the ICRC to pay more attention to the needs
of refugees who have settled in Nagornyy Karabakh.