Zermatt peak to be renamed after Red Cross founder
The Ostspitze mountain in Zermatt will be renamed after Henri Dunant, who founded the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863. The idea, put forward by Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, has been approved by the local commune.
“Didier Burkhalter asked us some time ago whether, as a sort of present for the jubilee [the 150th anniversary of the ICRC], we could rename a peak on the Monte Rosa Massif the Dunant Peak,” Christop Bürgin, mayor of Zermatt, told the Swiss News Agency recently.
“We think it’s an excellent idea. The Ostspitze is not a well-known mountain and this celebrity name will make it more famous.”
The Ostspitze will now become the Dunant-Spitze (Dunant Peak), or Pointe-Dunant in French.
At 4,632 metres, the peak is the second-highest in Switzerland, two metres lower than the Dufourspitze, named after Swiss General Guillaume-Henri Dufour.
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