ICRC inspects conditions for detainees

Over the past week, staff from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) have been visiting about 350 detainees held by the opposition Northern Alliance in the capital, Kabul, and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif to check conditions, an ICRC official confirmed to IRIN on Friday.

"There was a place in Mazar where there were no facilities for the detainees, and no food and water, so we provided them," the ICRC spokesman in Kabul, Bernard Barrett, said. He added that others were found in need of urgent medical attention and were transferred to hospitals. "To date, six detainees have been hospitalised," Barrett said. "The authorities have been very cooperative in allowing us access," he stressed.

"When we enter a detention centre, one of the first things we do is register the detainees," Barrett said. "We then talk to them in private and inspect the conditions they are living in, and if they are not suitable, we discuss this with the authorities," he added, saying that staff had only managed to gain access to visit detainees in Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul.

ICRC staff have also been distributing clothes, blankets and hygiene kits during their visits, while the Afghan Red Crescent Society is offering daily medical care to the detention centres.

As for what would happen to these detainees, Barrett said: "That is up to the authorities. We are there to make sure they are treated as humanely as possible." He added that so far some 240 detainees had been registered in Mazar-e Sharif and 100 in Kabul.

In addition to the 1,000 national staff present in Afghanistan, ICRC currently has 30 expatriates there, 17 of them in Kabul. "We only allow international staff to carry out visits to detainees for security reasons," Barrett said. "We are trying to bring in additional staff at the moment to increase our capacity here," he explained.

Earlier this week, ICRC found between 400 and 600 bodies in Mazar-e Sharif, after the withdrawal of Taliban forces, but could not confirm how they had died. Barrett said about 300 bodies had already been buried. "The purpose of this exercise is to ensure hygiene in the area and ensure that the bodies are dealt with in a dignified way," he said.

Speculation continues over whether the bodies were result of a massacre, but the facts have not yet been established. Earlier reports by the UN, said about 100 young Taliban recruits died in a school in Mazar-e-Sharif the day after the city fell to the Northern Alliance.

Meanwhile, the UN confirmed on Friday that it was sending staff to Mazar-e Sharif, but on day visits only, to assess security and the humanitarian situation. On Thursday, its seven-person team had met the national staff, aid workers and local authorities, Stephanie Bunker, the spokeswoman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, said on Friday.

"The meeting with national staff was described as being 'emotional', and they were praised for their work," she told reporters at a briefing in Islamabad. Top UN officials had held a first set of meetings with representatives of the foreign ministry and also with the Uzbek warlord, Rashid Dostum, and similar meetings would continue, Bunker added.