Opening and First Difficulties
As soon as the decision was taken, an international medical team gathered by the ICRC left Geneva. It found all the material needed to assemble a field hospital in Nazran, provided by the Norwegian Red Cross with Norwegian technicians accompanying it. Together they left Nazran for Novye Atagi. The hospital was assembled very quickly and opened on 2 September.
The expatriates staff was immediately submitted to very intense pressures from the local authorities to recruit always more personnel among the inhabitants of the village.
On 18 September, the Arab warlord Ibn al-Khattab penetrated the enclosure of the hospital with several armed men, demanding that the ICRC withdraws immediately all the flags carrying the Red Cross which marked the hospital. A compromise was reached and the number of flags simply decreased.
On 21 September, it was announced during a meeting that impacts of bullets had been found on the external walls of the expatriate’s residence. The commander of the village promised that the neighbourhood of the compound will be watched more carefully.
On 26 September, the pressures for recruitment of ever more local staff led to the abduction of the head of office and of the expatriate administrator by the same commander who was supposed to protect the team. They were however released the very same day and the commander was replaced as a result of the incident.
Read more about this topic: ICRC Hospital Of Novye Atagi
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““If you do!” She was opening the door wider.
“Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.
I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sorts of difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)