Red Cross seeking permission to work in ISIS territory

opening ceremony of the 20. Session of The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IFRC, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is trying to establish relations with ISIS in hopes of delivering aid to the 10 million people living under its control as ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord told AFP in an interview.

“We have a very clear humanitarian vision. First, what we see is 10 million people. Ten million people under the control of the Islamic State group. We are interested in these 10 million people. What happens to them? What are their problems? This is what will guide us,” he said.

The comments were made ahead of an agency conference in Geneva, held every four years, which gathers some 2,000 ICRC employees and national Red Cross staffers for talks on the challenges facing humanitarian workers in increasingly complex environments.

The emergence of armed groups which at times disregard the need for life-saving aid is one of the threats facing the ICRC and groups like it, Daccord said.

Organisations seeking to help civilians engulfed by conflict will increasingly need to connect with such groups, regardless of their ideology, he told AFP. “You don’t build acceptance from Boko Haram or any armed group in Syria in one day. It takes a lot of time and you have to have the right people.”

While the head of Middle East Bureau of Red Cross Robert Mardini told “Asharq Al-Awsat”, “The humanitarian situation in Syria is disastrous and it’s getting worse with each passing day. We should be able to provide the weak with whatever they need.”

The ultimate goal is “to work in close proximity” with those who need help, and to do that, you have to “talk to everybody,” he explained.

Daccord said it took several years of outreach to Boko Haram before the ICRC was able to work in the extremist group’s northeast Nigeria strongholds. To operate in Boko Haram or IS areas, an organisation must be seen as totally “non-partisan,” he said.

Daccord told AFP it was difficult to compare the current era to past periods in terms of threats facing aid workers.

But he said that in Syria, devastated by a four-year civil war, the Red Cross has suffered unprecedented losses, with 49 volunteers from the Syrian Red Crescent killed. “We’ve never seen that in our recent history,” Daccord said.

Red Cross workers are also being held hostage in Syria and Yemen, where several other members of the organisation have also been killed.