Between the end of December 1972 and mid-January 1973, National Red Cross Societies opened three offices to trace missing persons: in Saigon, Vientiane and Phnom-Penh. The ICRC has sent to these three towns specialists from its Central Tracing Agency to help the Societies organize the offices, prepare the necessary equipment (printing index cards in the local vernaculars, for example), and train local staff. Work has already started on the registration of requests for news. At the same time, information campaigns have been launched through the press and over the radio in order to make the people and local authorities aware of the opening of these national tracing services.