A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war. It is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. The first recorded use of a purpose built prisoner-of-war camp was during the Napoleonic Wars and they have been in use in all the main conflicts of the last 200 years. In the main camps are used for soldiers, sailors and, more recently, air crew who have been captured by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. In addition non-combatant enemy personnel, such as merchant mariners and civil aircrews, have been imprisoned in some conflicts. Since 1929 with the adoption of the Third Geneva Convention, prisoner of war camps have been required to be open to inspection by authorised representatives of a neutral power. Not all combatants have consistently applied the convention in all conflicts.
Read more about Prisoner-of-war Camp: Detention of Prisoners of War Before The Development of Camps, Development of Temporary Camps, Development of Permanent Camps, American Civil War Camps, Boer Wars, World War I, Polish–Soviet War, World War II, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars
Famous quotes containing the word camp:
“... the Ovarian Theory of Literature, or, rather, its complement, the Testicular Theory. A recent camp follower ... of this explicit theory is ... Norman Mailer, who has attributed his own gift, and the literary gift in general, solely and directly to the possession of a specific pair of organs. One writes with these organs, Mailer has said ... and I have always wondered with what shade of ink he manages to do it.”
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