International Committee of the Red Cross camps, organizing relief assistance for civilian populations, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War ("Zentralauskunftsstelle für Kriegsgefangene") had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. One major obstacle was that the Nazi-controlled German Red Cross refused to cooperate with the Geneva statutes including blatant violations such as the deportation of Jews from Germany and the mass murders
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement painted by one of several military organizations operating in the region at the time. Perhaps the Red Cross logo itself was also used, although no hard evidence was found for this; that this was part of the military operation to free the hostages, but was clearly intended to achieve surprise by deceiving the local people into thinking that a Red Cross helicopter was landing; and that the Red Cross should have responded more quickly and thoroughly to investigate the allegations than it did. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an