Working with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, the ICRC has stepped up its assistance to civilians in areas affected the fighting and to internally displaced people (IDPs) who have found refuge in safer areas – in camps, among host families or other shelters.

The ICRC was the first international humanitarian organization to enter Buner, Dir and Swat as soon as the security situation allowed. It has helped get the main hospitals in Buner and Swat up and running again, provided emergency relief to IDPs and restored family links severed by displacement.

In Peshawar the ICRC's surgical field hospital – initially set up to treat casualties of the fighting in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border – mainly treats patients from the NWFP now. Its physical rehabilitation programme helps patients disabled by their injuries return to a normal life.

Its contact with all parties involved in the fighting enables the ICRC to engage them in a dialogue on the need to protect civilians, the medical mission of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, detainees and on other humanitarian concerns.

The ICRC has been visiting Pakistani detention facilities since 2007. Detainees repatriated to Pakistan from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba are of particular concern to the organization. It runs a programme that enables civilians and detainees separated from their families to re-establish and maintain contact with them.

While scaling back its activities related to the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the ICRC still assists disabled people, primarily through rehabilitation and micro-economic projects.

The ICRC has been active in the country since 1947.

Presence (2009): 800 staff, including 100 expatriates