Last month we reproduced passages of the two volumes recently published by the ICRC on the work of the second session of the Conference of Government Experts which was held at Geneva from 3 May to 2 June 1972. The passages concerned were taken from the reports by Commissions II and III; the excerpts below are taken from the reports on the work of Commissions I and IV.

Between the end of December 1972 and mid-January 1973, National Red Cross Societies opened three offices to trace missing persons: in Saigon, Vientiane and Phnom-Penh. The ICRC has sent to these three towns specialists from its Central Tracing Agency to help the Societies organize the offices, prepare the necessary equipment (printing index cards in the local vernaculars, for example), and train local staff. Work has already started on the registration of requests for news. At the same time, information campaigns have been launched through the press and over the radio in order to make the people and local authorities aware of the opening of these national tracing services.

The second session of the Conference of Government Experts, in May 1972, provided some very worthwhile results. Not all of the problems were covered, however, and the solutions proposed for some were far from meeting with unanimous approval. The ICRC therefore felt it necessary to call meetings of groups of government experts to help select questions and draft the finer points. Specific technical matters, too, called for consultation with specialists.

In those areas where its delegates operate, the ICRC provides relief supplies which it buys on the spot or sends from Geneva. These supplies go to persons who have suffered as the result of local events, to detainees, or to National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for their relief programmes.