Following her recent visit to Estonia, the Head of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Denise Duran, talked about the specific role of a Red Cross Society, the principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the challenges faced by the ICRC today.
You have recently visited Estonia and met with representatives of various ministries, as well as with the Estonian Red Cross. Please tell us about the purpose of the meetings and summarize the outcome of the meetings.
It was my first visit to Estonia since ICRC’s Regional Delegation started covering the country from Warsaw last January. The reason for ICRC’s presence in the region is to address humanitarian needs triggered by the international armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, in close cooperation with the national Red Cross societies in the region. During that first visit, my team and I briefed authorities on the role of the ICRC and national societies (NS) in crisis. We have also shared operational updates on our humanitarian response provided to people affected by the conflict in Ukraine.
We have mostly engaged with directors of departments of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense. With the Estonian Red Cross (ERC) we discussed the different aspects of the role of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement) in crisis preparation and response. We plan to continue with such meetings to strengthen our relations with the government representatives, ERCS and other influential figures in Estonia.
Estonian Red Cross is registered in Estonia as a Non-Profit Organization (NPO). There are 44,629 organizations like that in the country. Is there any difference between them, and the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement?
There are several key differences between a national non-profit organization and a national Red Cross Society (which in some countries operates under the name of Red Crescent).
Those differences come from the fact that the National Society is part of a global humanitarian network – the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – that helps people facing conflict, disaster and health and social challenges.
Under the Statutes of the Movement, National Red Cross Societies have a very specific status as auxiliary to their government in the humanitarian field, carrying out humanitarian activities according to the needs of the people of their respective countries. They may assist people affected by natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies and, during times of armed conflict, they perform emergency relief operations as stipulated by those Statutes and by international humanitarian law (IHL).
In addition to NSs, the Movement comprises two international components – its founder, the ICRC and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies which acts before, during and after disasters and health emergencies to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people.
IFRC is an international membership organization that unites 191 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and supports them through a global secretariat.
Although they are auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian field, NSs must act in accordance with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement’s fundamental principles and maintain sufficient autonomy and act in a neutral, impartial, and independent way. That independence of action provides capacity to assist all those in need, regardless of their political affiliation, race, or faith.
Nowadays, it is easy for various interest groups to create false evidence and to shape false information. How much misinformation is circulating about the Red Cross and how can it be identified?
In today’s world, there is plenty of false information, spread either intentionally to cause harm or inadvertently. I would like to caution that false information and hate speech can fuel violence and make it more difficult for people in need of humanitarian assistance to get aid or services, as we have seen during a number of armed conflicts around the world. It can also damage the reputation of the Movement and erode the trust existing between its members and people in need of vital aid. Sometimes it can also create a false perception of bias or complicity, which can jeopardize the acceptance of humanitarian workers and can even lead to threats against them.
I think it’s best to look at reliable news providers and avoid getting information from one source only. A good rule to follow is to check the information at least three sources, independent of each other. When it comes to the Movement, both the Estonian Red Cross and the ICRC have verified social media accounts, and also websites (e.g. https://www.icrc.org), with information about our work. It’s a good place to read, if you want to deepen your knowledge on the The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement | ICRC).
The activities of humanitarian and charitable organizations in Estonia have been overshadowed by a number of associations that have exploited people’s goodwill for personal gain. How transparent is the humanitarian work of the Red Cross?
Let me answer this question by giving an example of my own organization, the ICRC, which works in more than 90 countries around the globe in close cooperation with NSs, mostly addressing the impact of armed conflict. We are committed to transparency and accountability in our humanitarian work. This is why we publish our annual reports with details of our activities and regularly provide our donors with information on our operations, processes, internal reviews and evaluations of activities at both field and headquarters levels. Every year our activities are subject to audits by external professional agencies, who file financial reports that are shared with our donors.
Transparency is a key enabler of building trust and acceptance, which are vital for carrying out our work in conflict zones. We recommend to all NSs to put mechanisms in place to ensure transparent reporting on their work to enhance their acceptance.
What is the role of the Red Cross network in providing assistance in armed conflict and how is cooperation with local national societies implemented? If possible, please explain using Ukraine as an example.
The ICRC has been providing emergency relief in some of the most affected or hard-to-reach areas of Ukraine, to both resident communities and displaced persons. It has been working with Ukrainian authorities, as well as with the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS), to ensure the provision of vital services such as healthcare and supporting livelihoods. In any Movement crisis response, the national Red Cross or Red Crescent society plays a key role. Other Movement actors, such as the ICRC, the IFRC and some national societies from other countries join in the response, supporting it with funding and technical expertise.
While carrying out its humanitarian work in Ukraine, the ICRC closely cooperates not only with the URCS, but also with the IFRC and the 17 Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies working in the country to respond to the needs of affected communities and support the capacity-building and independent humanitarian action of the URCS.
As well as working within the Movement, and supporting the URCS, ICRC undertakes its own specific work, which is mandated by States that have signed on to international humanitarian law treaties such as the Geneva Conventions.
In Ukraine and elsewhere ICRC has been supporting the functioning and repair of essential infrastructure, in particular the production and delivery of water, heating, and electricity. Living and housing conditions of civilians have been improved, while communities, Red Cross volunteers and civil servants have been made aware of risk-mitigation measures linked to weapon contamination. You can read more about the impact of our work in Ukraine on our web page dedicated to the international armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
One of the tasks of the ICRC is to ensure that prisoners of war (POWs) are treated humanely in military conflicts. For example, in the war in Ukraine, how difficult is the job of reaching prisoners of war?
Through the Geneva Conventions (GC), all the States in the world have collectively entrusted one institution – the International Committee of the Red Cross – with a mandate to operate as a neutral, independent, and impartial actor to facilitate the implementation of the Geneva Conventions (GC), including a specific role in relation to visiting POWs.
We can only do this if parties to the conflict fulfil their obligations to grant us access to places of detention and internment. While the GCs give the ICRC the right to visit, it’s the parties to the conflict that need to implement that right.
We know that there are empty spaces in many homes which would usually be filled by the men and women currently being held as PoWs in relation to the armed conflict in Ukraine. Bringing news to families who are worried about their loved ones is an important part of this work, as is making sure they have enough to eat, clean water to drink, and heat to stay warm.
Thanks to the collaboration between the ICRC’s Geneva-based Central Tracing Agency Bureau and the National Information Bureaus in Russia and Ukraine, thousands of families have received information about their detained or missing relatives. Meanwhile, in spite of persistent challenges in terms of access, the ICRC has been the only international organization allowed to visit POWs held by the two parties to the armed conflict. In coordination with the Commissioner for Missing Persons in Special Circumstances, the ICRC has supported the return across frontlines of thousands of fallen Ukrainian and Russian soldiers to their families.
Nowadays, the rules against shooting at neutral first aid providers in situations of armed conflict seem to be ignored, many Red Cross workers and volunteers have lost their lives helping people on the battlefield. Why do people go into life-threatening situations as volunteers?
One of the Fundamental Principles of the Movement is voluntary service. It is the selflessness of its employees and volunteers that is the driving force of the Movement, whose main purpose is to prevent and alleviate suffering, protect life, and ensure respect for human dignity.
Humanitarian workers are protected by international humanitarian law during their life-saving work in conflict situations. Unfortunately, according to the Aid Worker Security Report, 260 aid workers were killed in 2023, which was 120% more than year before. Already in the first quarter of 2024, there were more than 60 deaths.
This cannot be treated as occupational hazard. Every single one of aid workers is and should always be protected during armed conflict. They must never be a target.
One of the new directions of the Red Cross is the provision of mental first aid, and this is not only relevant in areas of war and other conflicts. Why and when do people need mental first aid?
Both mental and physical health are vital components of overall well-being. Mental health can fluctuate due to various factors, especially when a person’s challenges exceed their coping abilities.
Training Red Cross staff and volunteers in mental health first aid is extremely important because it teaches you how to identify those in distress and identify the symptoms of a mental health concern in order to help people who have difficulty coping with crisis situations. Like in physical health, the sooner the reaction and treatment, the better.
The ICRC seeks to strengthen the capacities of emergency actors (such as the URCS and the Police) to provide immediate basic psychological support in areas where access to mental health care is very limited, especially for children and families of missing persons. Our teams also developed a special ‘help the helper’ program to strengthen the resilience of frontline emergency workers and health staff who are constantly exposed to difficult, painful and stressful situations.
In Ukraine, the ICRC focuses on building the needed capacities of mental health
workers to deal with complex mental health issues affecting civilians, ex-combatants, families
of the missing and released PoWs who suffer from complex trauma, ambiguous loss or physical
disabilities. During 2023, almost a thousand psychologists were trained with the support of the ICRC to provide psychological and psychosocial care to families of missing or captured persons. Also, over 500 physiotherapists were trained in the mental health support of patients with amputations.
All organisations evolve over time – how has the Red Cross evolved from its inception to the present day, where are we heading and what are the challenges for the Red Cross for the next quinquennium?
The ICRC grew out of the battlefield, over 160 years ago. The horrors of a battle in the 19th century made our founder, Henry Dunant, realize that wounded soldiers were often left for certain death on the battlefield. With the inhabitants from a local village in northern Italy, he helped them as much as he could. This experience prompted the two ideas that he advocated for during the remainder of his life: creating and training voluntary aid societies in peace time who would act in situations of armed conflict, and for them to be protected by international legal treaties. His ideas led to the creation of the ICRC and national Red Cross or Red Crescent societies, and developing of the four Geneva Conventions, the main instruments of international humanitarian law.
Of course, that was almost two centuries back – when conflicts were different. With the evolution of warfare, the need for protection of vulnerable people during armed conflict also changed. The First World War saw unprecedented numbers of fallen or wounded soldiers. The huge number of civilians impacted by the Second World War led to the 1949 Geneva Conventions which protect all those affected by armed conflict: civilians, people deprived of liberty, as well as the wounded, sick and shipwrecked soldiers.
While many aspects of our work have changed over time, our commitment to aid those affected by armed conflicts has not. In today’s world, we focus on new challenges. For example, the ICRC’s institutional strategy 2024-2027 includes addressing the combined impact of climate change and armed conflict, including cyber operations, as well as gender, diversity and inclusion.
Cyber warfare is becoming a bigger part of XXI century’s armed conflicts. How will it affect international humanitarian law?
Cyber operations have become a reality of today’s armed conflicts, and their use is likely to continue to grow in the future. Considering this trend, the ICRC maintains that IHL governs – and limits – any use of cyber operations during armed conflicts, just as it does to any other means or methods of warfare. Digital threats to civilian populations urgently require inclusive discussion and clarification of complex legal questions. For example: what limits do existing rules of IHL impose on cyber operations that risk disrupting essential civilian services and infrastructure or manipulate and delete data?
The ICRC emphasizes that affirming the applicability of IHL to cyber warfare does not legitimize cyber warfare itself. It does, however, aim to limit the humanitarian impact of cyber operations, ensuring that the rules of war are respected in this domain.
For more on this interesting and developing topic, please see a series of articles on our Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog.
What is the role of the Red Cross in preparation for crisis situations in peacetime?
However grim that might sound, in peacetime, you must prepare for crisis. Just like fire fighters training to contain a fire, and warning about its dangers, NSs should spend part of its time in peace preparing for a crisis response. Both IHL and the Statutes of the Movement specify the role of the country’s Red Cross during crisis.
Public authorities and National Societies may agree on specific humanitarian roles that the National Society will carry out. To this end, they can organize exercises and contingency planning for different types of humanitarian operations and scenarios. Although the tasks undertaken by the National Society vary from country to country, some common roles include spreading the humanitarian principles and promoting respect for all human beings in all situations, undertaking emergency relief operations, searching for and reuniting separated family members, searching for missing persons, evacuating people to safer areas, providing emergency first aid, and teaching the rules of IHL which protects those who do not – or who no longer – participate in armed conflicts.
Each National Society must prepare to act in accordance with the principles of the Movement and to train its staff and volunteers on these fundamental principles which mean that we treat people as equal. Everyone deserves respect, living or dead. Aid must be distributed according to needs, not preferences. Red Cross cannot choose sides. It must aid all those in need.
One of the tools that is used for crisis preparation in our Movement is the Safer Access Framework. Its aim is to help NSs increase their ability to respond safely and effectively to humanitarian needs in sensitive and insecure situations. It addresses issues like how to approach the affected population, how to assess needs and deliver assistance, how to have the right legal foundation and technical skills, how to be visible and accepted by the affected population and to ensure that staff and volunteers have the right expertise, training, reflexes and approaches to conduct the humanitarian mission that National Societies are tasked with.
What should any of us do, to be prepared in case of armed conflicts?
There are a number of ways you can prepare yourself for a crisis, from having some cash with you, radio with marked frequencies where you can listen to messages from authorities and get information on services available, to stockpiling of food and water. This you can learn from your National Society, in this case – the Estonian Red Cross, and local authorities. But let me turn your attention to something close to our work – protecting family links.
Do you know the phone number of your loved ones? Have you memorized it or written it down on paper somewhere and secured it? Imagine you lose your phone and all electronic contacts. How do you reach them once you regain access to a phone? This is one of simple ways you can ensure, that even if you lose contact with them, you will have some way of regaining it in the future.
Also, secure your documents. These are vital for your identification. Should anything happen to you, a secured document could mean that your family will find out about your fate. Having copies of your documents could also be useful.
Lastly, very important – discuss with your loved ones where you would meet, should you be separated? Some landmark in your town or city, some place you both know. Set a time as well, for instance – midday. This not only gives you something specific to look for, but also sets some parameters. In an armed conflict, where things can be very chaotic and disruptive, any stability is priceless.
While armed conflicts are almost inevitably politicized, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement must remain neutral and must not pick sides. How can it help in conflicts, where feud between parties is, irreconcilable?
The Movement, of which ICRC is the founder, is guided in its work by the seven Fundamental Principles. Among them are neutrality, independence and impartiality. Our neutral stance, not picking sides and providing aide to all those in need, regardless of their race, gender, faith and political affiliation are the best tool to bring help to everyone. Because of that, we can act as a neutral intermediary between sides of the conflict.
Neutrality is something that ICRC has been criticized for recently, but in our experience gathered in countless armed conflicts, both international and non-international, it does make sense! It can help with obtaining information on the fate of the missing, visiting POWs and transporting them upon their release. Being resolutely non-political and strictly humanitarian forces limits on what we can say publicly. To embody our principles, we must refrain from public statements and from sharing sensitive information publicly. This allows us to have the confidence of the warring sides so that we can reach villages close to the frontlines or other sensitive areas where other organizations cannot go, to provide assistance. We understand that not everyone needs to be neutral and that it is human to take sides – but we cannot. This way we can ensure access to all sides of the frontlines, to all of those affected by an armed conflict.
The world around us seems to have gone mad – from various internal conflicts to armed conflicts between countries – how is it possible to remain neutral in the midst of all this?
Let me turn that question – how can we not remain neutral? In a polarized world, where almost everyone takes a side, a humanitarian network that provides protection and assistance in a neutral, impartial and independent manner, seems to me a dire necessity.
Our president, Mirjana Sporjalic, captured this dilemma in an op-ed for the New York Times:
“Taking sides in the conflict is a natural impulse. It is also something that my organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, cannot do. If we did, it wouldn’t be possible to provide humanitarian assistance to people across the world’s most contentious theaters of armed conflict. “
Our humanitarian work is not only underpinned by our principles, it is also based on more than 160 years of experience. Our neutrality has served not only the Movement well, but also – most importantly – those affected by armed conflicts, other situations of violence and natural disasters.
While we always strive to improve our work, it is also up to the states who bestowed a mandate on the ICRC to protect and assist people during armed conflict in a non-political way to create a conducive environment to support humanitarian work and respect of IHL. With their help, we can really make a difference.