Dear community

Here I write you about the suggestions requested to improve our ERU work to reduce and mitigate the risks that the National Society may face in sensitive and insecure contexts, and/or help earn the trust and acceptance of people and communities with humanitarian needs, as well as of those who control or influence access to them.

I describe my experience when I was deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo during the 2010 violence that spread in the North-East part of the country, where the LAR was carrying out attacks toward the population.

The particularity of the operation was the isolation of the region and the difficult access due to lack or very bad road conditions and the heavy rain. In fact the area is under the tropical climate with heavy rains almost every day. Within the area the military were deployed in order to keep the safety of the population that experienced armed attacks few months ago. Local infrastructures, such as hospitals, health clinics, schools and public buildings, were destroyed and the local population did not have drugs and other basic items.

The SAF element most relevant in this context/experience according to me was the acceptance of the organisation. While assisting the local population at hospital and also with some mobile clinics to the several health clinics spread over the territory, the military tried several times to stop our work. The official excuse was the danger of having teams of delegates and national staff going to remote villages to assist the most vulnerable. The military personnel sometimes was asking for money, fuel or medicines and apparently they did not know the principles of the RC, especially the neutrality, independence and impartiality. We always told them that if they needed to be visited or treated for any medical condition that they should have come to one clinic and we were going to treat them free of charge. Somehow we understood they wanted us to recognise their work (protection) giving them special favors.

I also remember that one day we received a wounded person at the hospital, which apparently was a member of an armed group. The military came to the hospital and managed to enter the compound armed in order to arrest the man. As I was at that time in charge of the programme, after discussing with them, I went to see the local responsible for the issue. I remember that it was not easy to explain the principles and the fact that we could not as humanitarian organisation accept any weapon within the hospital. Finally I managed to reach an agreement and he accepted to leave the "prisoner" at the hospital for medical treatment and he asked his personnel to leave the weapons within the military camp. Two militaries stayed within the compound guarding the person but without being armed.

In order to avoid these kinds of tensions and discussions with the military and possibly with other local and regional actors and avoid to have security incidents for lack of respect of the RC principles, the ERU team should really implement some specific activities to explain all fundamental principles of the movement to all relevant actors. Special sensitization campaigns should be quickly organized to target military personnel, police, public servants and other actors to gain respect for the humanitarian programme and to make sure that all different groups perceive the RC as a neutral, independent and impartial organization. The respect of all fundamental principles should protect the activities of all RC personnel.

In the long term I propose that the NS improves this aspect increasing the awareness on fundamental principles to all relevant actors.

Kind Regards,

Mirko