By KUNA
Kabul : The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in collaboration with the United States, is going to provide a video conferencing facility to the former Taliban prisoners at the US Bagram base, located north of Kabul, allowing detainees to contact their family members.
This is the first time since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 that the Afghan detainees, some of whom had been transferred to the Bagram base from Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, would talk face to face with their relatives.
More than 600 Afghan prisoners are presently kept at the Bagram base, located some 45 kilometres north of the Afghan capital.
In a statement, the Geneva-based ICRC said the programme involved equipment supplied by the American military, with the international humanitarian institution setting up a call centre on the premises of its delegation in Kabul.
The ICRC said a similar centre had been created at Bagram base for the detainees. Under the arrangements, both the prisoners as well as their family members would be able to talk to and see each others.
The relatives and family members of the inmates will be sitting at the ICRC on the premises of the ICRC in Kabul, while the detainees will talk to them from the detention centre at Bagram in Parwan province of Afghanistan.