By Umar Khan.
Tripoli, 28 August 2013:
The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) is hosting a ten-day photo exhibition at the Dar . . .[restrict]Al-Fanun (Art House) next to the Prime Minister’s office on Tripoli’s Triq al Siqqa, starting on Saturday, 31 August, to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared as well as the 150th anniversary of ICRC. The opening ceremony will feature a 10-minute documentary as well as short speeches by the ICRC head of delegation and the head of Libyan Red Crescent.
More than 40 photographs are to be exhibited of which 24 were taken by young Libyans expressing their feelings on people missing from their lives. The other 18 will celebrate the 150 years of ICRC with some photographs dating back to the First World War.
Nancy Hamad, the ICRC official following up the cases of missing persons, told the Libya Herald that it took more than two months to organise this exhibition. “The main idea was to help people commemorate their loved ones,” she said. “We were told by parents that some children don’t speak at all about their loved ones that are missing. So we provided cameras to young children to help express their feelings in pictures.”
The ICRC says it will also unveil a publication entitled “Accompanying the Families of Missing Persons: A Practical Handbook,” which is intended to help those in and outside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement who are trying to help the families of the missing. The 154-page manual is dedicated to “all those who have to endure the anguish caused by the disappearance of a loved one”.
The head of ICRC team dealing with the missing, Marianne Pecassou, said in a press release that families of missing persons have greater needs than simply knowing their status. “Families have the right to know what happened to missing relatives,” she emphasised. “To find that out is their primary need, but further needs must also be addressed by governments and by organisations such as Red Cross or Red Crescent societies”.
The exhibition ends on Monday, 9 September . [/restrict]
