ICRC in Azerbaijan: January to June 2019

The ICRC continued its operations in Azerbaijan during the first half of 2019, delivering humanitarian assistance to communities affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Through our offices in Baku and Barda, we could reach thousands in Azerbaijan, offering humanitarian protection, economic security and water and habitat-related activities. During the first six months of the year, 3,000 people benefited from the ICRC's neutral intermediary role in Azerbaijan.

More than 6,300 people in five communities received agriculture or livestock inputs to improve their livelihoods. As many as 373 hectares of crops were harvested with ICRC support, resulting in the production of 10,383 bales of alfa-alfa, 19,584 bales of barley, 299 tonnes of barley and 297 tonnes of wheat.

To increase civilians' resilience to weapon contamination, the ICRC continued its activities through briefings and forum theaters on preparedness and safer behaviour, reaching out to 1,639 people. As many as 114 posters highlighting landmine-related risks and how to avoid them were distributed in four front-line communities.

The ICRC continued its collaboration with authorities to bring answers to the families of missing people in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. As many as 1,025 biological reference samples were collected from the relatives of missing people to help the identification process in the future.

Being the guardian of international humanitarian law, the ICRC continued its efforts to promote IHL. For this purpose, various IHL-related events were organized where more than 1,200 servicemen of the Azerbaijan army participated.

Highlights of our work in Azerbaijan from January to June 2019:

• 6,336 people in five communities received agriculture or livestock inputs like seeds, fertilizers and subsidies for machine costs as a way to improve their livelihoods.
• 3,000 people benefited from the ICRC's neutral intermediary role facilitating civilians' safer access to exposed fields to plant, harvest and repair vital infrastructure.
• 1,600 people from eleven communities increased resilience to weapon contamination through briefings, forum theaters on preparedness and landmine risk-related awareness activities.
• 1,200 servicemen and cadets of Azerbaijan army participated in briefings and events related to the ICRC and IHL.