The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been working in Haiti since 1967. Its current priorities are:

• protecting and assisting people deprived of their freedom in all the permanent and temporary places of detention in Haiti;
• protecting and assisting people living in certain areas affected by the violence, Cité Soleil in particular;
• working with the Haitian National Red Cross Society and supporting its activities;
• promoting humanitarian principles among all weapons bearers, the State authorities, political entities and members of civil society.

ICRC delegates regularly visit temporary and permanent places of detention in Haiti. Between January and December 2007, ICRC delegates visited 6,789 people deprived of their freedom in 20 places of detention (17 prisons and 3 police stations). The aim of these visits is to improve detention conditions and the treatment detainees receive. Delegates therefore interview detainees without witnesses and engage in constructive and confidential dialogue with the authorities at all levels.

• Between April and September 2007, 3,156 detainees and 160 prison officers (and their families) at the civilian prison in Port-au-Prince benefited from a treatment campaign targeting scabies, fungal skin infections, intestinal parasites and beriberi. It was one of the biggest operations of its kind ever undertaken by the ICRC in any detention centre in the world.
  “Before being treated, I was constantly scratching. It was horrible and unbearable. I hardly got any sleep at night. It all just makes prison life even more stressful. Scabies is the cause of so many other problems.”
  25-year-old detainee at the civilian prison in Port-au-Prince

• Between June and December 2007, the ICRC organized eight round-table meetings in Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince on access to medical care for those deprived of their freedom and on tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in the prison environment. These meetings were attended by representatives from the prison service senior management (DAP), representatives from the Ministry of Health, the directors of the detention centres and the managers of referral hospitals for prisons.

• In September 2007, the ICRC installed a second water pump at the civilian prison in Port-au-Prince and began works to improve water distribution.

• In June 2007, the ICRC connected the prison in Cap-Haïtien to the national drinking-water supply (SNEP). The prison’s entire water distribution system was repaired and the ICRC also helped to double the water storage capacity of the showers from 800 to 1,600 gallons.

• Thanks to work carried out by the ICRC in August 2007, in cooperation with SNEP, the water distribution network serving the town of l’Anse-à-Veau (and consequently the prison there) is now back in use. The current priority is to set up a water management committee to ensure that the network remains operational in the long term.

• In all the detention centres it visits, the ICRC periodically distributes hygiene items such as soap, brooms and bleach and other disinfection products.
  First aid and evacuation of the injured and sick
  “What makes us carry on is the fact that after we finished our training, we said we would join, and that serves as an oath. And when we see how grateful people are, we feel proud and that motivates us even more.”.
  Blandy Oxiatus, Haitian Red Cross first-aid worker
  
  

The ICRC has continued to support two Haitian Red Cross first-aid posts in Cité Soleil that are responsible for evacuating the injured and sick. Victims receive first aid from Haitian Red Cross volunteers before being evacuated in a tap-tap (normal taxi) protected by the red cross emblem. In September 2007, the Haitian Red Cross and the ICRC began work on plans to set up a similar project in the Martissant area.

• Between January and December 2007, 284 injured and sick people from Cité Soleil received first-aid treatment and were taken to suitable hospital facilities by the medical evacuation service.

One of the main problems Cité Soleil residents have had to contend with is the scarcity of water, due to the seriously dilapidated condition of the existing facilities and also to the poor security conditions, which have made it impossible for the city water board (CAMEP) to deliver fuel to the only operational pumping station. Cité Soleil residents, principally women and children, have been forced to make long journeys to collect water, both in and outside the Cité, exposing them to even greater danger and also leaving many of them no time to earn money.

The ICRC contacted the Ministry of Public Works, CAMEP and the Haitian electricity board (EDH), and began working with the public services to ensure that Cité Soleil residents had at least a basic level of access to drinking water. This project is now in its final stages: the public authorities and the ICRC are currently focusing on the creation of a transparent and self-sufficient system for managing the fountains. A management committee formed of Cité residents has been set up (known as COGESEP-SOL) which will be responsible for handling the revenue from the sale of water. Some of this revenue will be reserved for CAMEP, to cover the costs of water production. COGESEP-SOL will then be able to use the balance for maintaining the fountains and implementing social programmes in the Cité.

• The ICRC repaired two bore holes to increase drinking water production for the inhabitants of Cité Soleil.

• The ICRC repaired 40 of 53 fountains refurbished in 2006 that had suffered vandalism or been damaged during violent clashes in the first quarter of 2007.

Together with the International Federation of Red and Red Crescent Societies and the National Societies working in Haiti, the ICRC provides institutional support for the Haitian Red Cross and does its part to boost the National Society’s capacity and promote its activities.

• When Hurricane Dean hit in August 2007, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement partners joined forces to mount a rapid, well-coordinated and effective response to help the disaster victims. Combined teams (ICRC, participating National Societies, and Haitian Red Cross volunteers) went to the affected regions to carry out assessments. A total of 950 families subsequently received assistance, mainly in the south, south-east, Gran'Anse and des Nippes departments, and were supplied with hygiene items, kitchen utensils, mattresses, wool blankets and mosquito nets.

• In March 2007, the ICRC provided the Haitian Red Cross with the technical and financial support it needed to finish repair work on its first-aid post in Belladères (a town a few kilometres from the Haiti-Dominican Republic border) and its regional office in Mirebalais.

• The ICRC is contributing to a restructure of the National Society tracing service, which restores links between close relatives separated by a conflict, natural disaster or other event.

On 20 June 2007, Protocols I and II additional to the Geneva Conventions entered into force in Haiti. These instruments deal with the protection of victims of international and non-international armed conflicts respectively.

• The ICRC promotes awareness of international humanitarian law and fundamental humanitarian principles among the Haitian national police, the troops of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and other weapons bearers. It particularly emphasizes the respect that must always be accorded to the red cross emblem, to staff of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and to medical personnel, especially when they are evacuating the injured and sick from violent areas.

• The ICRC has also been working to make international humanitarian law part of the curriculum at universities and other higher education institutions. In April 2007, an information day on international humanitarian law was organized at the State University of Haiti, following a similar event at Quisqueya University the year before. Over 200 students, their lecturers, and representatives from human rights NGOs working all over the country took part. Thanks to the cooperation of the university authorities, international humanitarian law is now being taught in Haiti.

• The ICRC maintains contacts with the media enabling it to send out humanitarian messages. During carnival time in February and prior to the municipal elections in April 2007, radio stations broadcast a message in certain areas at the ICRC’s request reminding people that Red Cross staff, ambulances and facilities are entitled to protection. In addition, the 30th anniversary of Additional Protocols I and II was allocated airtime by several radio stations and a television channel, thereby drawing the public’s attention to the importance of these treaties for the protection of civilians in situations of armed conflict.