Libya: What the ICRC did in 2012: Facts and figures

Supporting the Libyan Red Crescent Society (LRCS)

• Supplied 10,000 hygiene parcels to the LRCS for distribution to 60,000 displaced and vulnerable persons in Benghazi.
• Held three first-aid instructor courses for 171 volunteers.
• Donated 13 ambulances and 5 mini-buses with first-aid related material, such as stretchers, training dummies, etc.
• Renovated LRCS offices and clinics affected by the conflict in Bani Walid, Sirte and Ajdabya.

Promoting detainee welfare

• Carried out 184 visits to 86 places of detention, where more than 12,600 detainees had been held, albeit not at the same time.
• Registered and monitored 603 detainees.
• Delivered more than 17,600 essential household items (blankets, hygiene kits, clothes, cleaning supplies, etc.) to 13 places of detention.
• Provided food for 3,000 migrants in retention centres in southern Libya.
• Launched five repair projects for water networks in Benghazi, Al-Gharyan and Tripoli, benefiting approximately 3,500 detainees.

Restoring family links and clarifying the fate of missing persons

• Provided support to the Ministry of the Affairs of the Families of Martyrs and Missing on restoring family links, management of human remains, collection and management of personal data, and mechanisms for handling missing persons cases.
• Exchanged more than 300 Red Cross messages between family members who had become separated, mostly due to detention.
• Arranged 1,045 phone calls in places of detention and migrant retention centres.
• Notified 352 foreign detainees to their embassies.
• Visited four Libyan detainees in Guantanamo, enabled them to exchange 20 Red Cross messages with their families, and arranged six telephone and three audio-visual conference calls between them and their loved ones.

Supporting forensic activities

• Ran an introductory forensic tracing course for 24 staff of the Ministry of the Affairs of the Families of Martyrs and Missing.
• Provided technical advice during visits to gravesites in Sirte, Ras Lanouf, Asaba, Wadi Rabi'a and Bir Lusta Milad.

Supporting health care

• Donated sufficient medical supplies for operations on 450 casualties to Al-Gharyan, Asaba, Al-Kufrah, Sabha, Brak and Bani Walid hospitals.
• Supplied clinics in Al-Kufra, Brak and Bani Walid with emergency kits, each of which enabled them to treat 50 persons who had suffered weapon wounds.
• Donated two portable oxygen ventilators for critically ill patients to Sabha hospital during the fighting.
• Donated stretchers and materials for the management and evacuation of casualties to the Zwara branch of the LRCS and to the ambulance services of Al-Kufra, Ajdabya and Misrata.
• Donated 620 body bags.
• Evacuated 93 patients and 62 family members across the front lines in Al-Kufra, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.
• Coordinated a training session on emergency disaster response with the LRCS, involving a simulated plane crash at M'itigah Airport, for more than 150 participants from Libyan emergency services.
• Provided first-aid training to 606 people in Misrata, Ghadamis, Sirte, Tripoli, Ghat, Sabha and Rakaba.
• Organized two three-day emergency room trauma courses (on intubation, mass casualties, triage and emergency preparedness) in Misrata and Benghazi for 35 doctors.
• Enabled four Libyan surgeons from Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli and Obari to participate in an intensive war surgery seminar in Geneva.
• Organized a seminar for 128 surgeons from various regions, to improve their skills with regard to treating weapon wounds.

Reducing risks related to weapon contamination

• Removed 8,948 explosive items and 12,524 rounds of small arms ammunition in the Nafusa Mountains, Bani Walid, Misrata, Sirte, Zwara, Ragdaline and Tripoli.
• Held risk-education sessions for at least 24,000 people in heavily contaminated areas, working with the LRCS.
• Trained police officers, 19 LRCS branches and the personnel of the National Safety Authority in Tripoli and Bani Walid to raise awareness of the dangers of explosive remnants of war.
• Helping internally displaced persons and vulnerable communities
• Provided food for more than 55,000 displaced persons in the immediate aftermath of conflict, in Misrata, Karrarim, Wadi Mardoum, Urban (Gumata, Al-Ja'afrah, and Awlad Brik), Tarhuna, Sgeiga, Tripoli camps and Abu-Ghrein.
• Worked with the LRCS to provide essential household items for more than 58,000 displaced persons in various regions.
• In conjunction with the LRCS and the Syrian Refugee Council, provided emergency aid to 3,000 newly-arrived Syrian refugees in Misrata.

Providing clean water and improving sanitation

Completed 19 projects to help provide clean drinking water, benefiting:

• 10,500 people in Kikla, Sabha, Kufra and Urban (Bani Walid);
• 80,000 people in Qubah, Al-Kufrah, Al-Zintan, Al-Gharyan, Kikla, Misrata and Benghazi;
• 650,000 people in Ajdabya and Misrata.

Promoting international humanitarian law

• Signed an agreement with the Ministry of Defence to train officers of the Libyan Army on the law of armed conflict.
• Held events involving officials of the Ministry of Defence, the Libyan Army and leaders of revolutionary brigades in Tripoli, Misrata, Benghazi and the Nafusa Mountains, in order to sensitize them to IHL.
• Organized a round-table meeting with the Libyan Army to discuss the incorporation of IHL in national legislation, internal regulations and the manuals of the armed forces.
• Ran four one-week training courses on IHL for 92 Libyan Army, Ministry of Defence and military council/Libyan Shield officers.