“30 years of continuous ICRC activities in Cambodia”
Tuesday, December 29th at 6 pm
Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center
64, St 200, Phnom Penh

Until 1970, the activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Cambodia concentrated on matters related to the war in Vietnam. The border between Vietnam and Cambodia was the theatre of frequent incidents causing large numbers of civilian and military casualties. The ICRC supported the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC) in its medical assistance for the victims. After the Coup d’Etat in 1970, the ICRC, together with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (then called the League) and some twenty National Red Cross Societies, launched an emergency operation in order to assist the tens of thousands of displaced persons with food and non - food items as well as with basic medicine. The ICRC had to leave the country after the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh in April 1975. This exhibition highlights activities developed by the ICRC from the time it was able to resume its relief operation in September 1979 up to the present. During the first period (1979-1989), the ICRC, together with UNICEF, centred its efforts towards an emergency operation. When the emergency was over, the ICRC worked for the rebuilding and recovery of the country (1990-1999). Mainly, it supported medical structures, developed an orthopaedic project, worked for the reestablishment of family links, visited prisoners and promoted International Humanitarian Law (IHL). When peace was finally established, the ICRC started to gradually hand over responsibilities of the different programmes it had built up over the past years to Government institutions and the CRC (2000-2009).