Special episode: World Humanitarian Day stories from crisis zones

ROBERT SULLIVAN

Today marks World Humanitarian Day and we have a special episode of our Inside Geneva podcast with testimonies from aid workers who have given their all – and who have often lost a great deal.

“So I had taken him to the airport together with our child, and, yes, it took me in fact many years to be able to use the same elevator in the airport where I last kissed him,” says Laura Dolci. 

Dolci’s young husband Jean-Selim was killed, just weeks after the birth of their son, in the bombing of the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.

Twenty years on, WHO cameraman Chris Black was sent to Gaza, to support, and document, medical care there.

“Something I really will never forget is a woman, with a young child, saying to me: ‘Are we safe here?’ And I wanted to say: ‘Yes, you’re in the grounds of a hospital, under international humanitarian law this is a protected space, you should be safe here.’ But I couldn’t say to her: ‘You’re safe here,’” says Black.  

More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

 “People have told me oh you must be very brave for going to Gaza. And I don’t think so. I think what’s brave is the people who have been doing this work since early October and who go back every day to do it again and again and again,” continues Black.  

“The aid worker, the humanitarian worker, the peacekeeper; ultimately it’s a human being that decides to put its own being to the service of humanity,” says Dolci.  

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for an inspiring listen.

Find out more about the Inside Geneva podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here.

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