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Families, detainees talk by video
14/01/2008 12:08 - (SA)
Kabul - The Red Cross and the US military have launched a programme allowing detainees at the main American military base in Afghanistan to speak to their families via video-teleconference calls, the Red Cross said in a statement on Monday.
"The system is the first of its kind," said Reto Stocker, the delegation head for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan.
"It was set up ... to reassure detainees and their families by allowing them to see and speak to one another," he said in a statement.
The families of some of the 600 to 650 prisoners held at the detention facility at Bagram Air Base, 50km north of the capital, can go to the Red Cross offices in Kabul to talk with their family members and see them on television screens for about 20 minutes, the Red Cross said in a statement.
In the three days since its start, some 60 families from around Afghanistan have used the programme, the statement said.
The Red Cross helps individuals held in detention establish and maintain contact with their families. This is largely done through an exchange of written messages between detainees and their families.
Delegates from the Red Cross have been visiting the detention facility at Bagram Air Base since 2002. Their reports on the condition under which prisoners are held there are kept secret.
- AP
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