HIV/AIDS relief for some genocide victims

RWANDA: HIV/AIDS relief for some genocide victims

JOHANNESBURG, 27 Jan 2005 (PLUSNEWS) - Witnesses for the prosecution in Rwanda's genocide trials, many of whom were raped and infected with HIV, are receiving medical support from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The ITCR was established by a UN Security Council resolution, with the aim of prosecuting persons responsible for the 1994 massacres and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.

According to Elsie Effange-Mbella, an ITCR gender advisor, the tribunal spent US $200,000 last year on providing anti-AIDS drugs to some of the victims at a clinic in the capital, Kigali.

Effange-Mbella told the local Hirondelle News Agency that nine out of 33 people who tested positive for HIV were currently receiving antiretroviral treatment.

[ENDS]

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