Pronounced by Ms Marion Harroff-Tavel, Deputy Delegate General for Operations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Geneva, 20 December 1996

There were six of them. Six human beings who, with their skills, their hands and their hearts brought shelter, care, comfort and a smile to the wounded of the conflict in Chechnya. They came from Norway, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, all of them under the banner of the Red Cross. They worked in the ICRC hospital at Novye Atagi. And they are no longer with us. A seventh lies wounded by the bullet which was intended to kill him. The grief of those who witnessed that carnage is felt by us all.

After the shock, the revulsion, the questions, there remains the suffering. Our suffering. The suffering that comes with the loss of loved ones, people who should never have had to die. Not so soon. Not like that. The suffering of the families, of their colleagues and friends, of everyone in the Red Cross and Red Crescent, of all those who surround us in our daily lives. "Even the Red Cross!", they exclaim. Yes, even the Red Cross! The emblem which shelters humanity in distress, the sign of life and hope, the sign which should protect...

The suffering we feel is also mixed with anger. This was murder - brutal, cruel, implacable, cold-blooded murder. After such a deed, can we still believe in human dignity, the dignity of each and every human being? Should we see man as he is or as we would like him to be? And then, there is the doubt. This piercing doubt. How far should we go in our humanitarian mission? In our medical mission? Where does commitment begin and where does it end? At what point should we give up? At what price for those we help?

At this cruel time, when we are gathered here to honour the memory of those who are gone, to share our pain and that of their families, let us forget for a moment where we are now. Let us forget the comfort, the sense of security and the joyful approach of Christmas in a city adorned with lights.

Let us imagine instead that we are somewhere in Chechnya. The snow-covered mountains of the Caucasus look down on the plain. The inhabitants of Grozny, the people of the villages and hamlets are trying to rebuild their homes from the rubble, to care for their wounded, to piece together the shattered fragments of their lives. So many shattered lives, Chechen and Russian alike. But everything is lacking. The water mains are damaged, the pumps are out of order, the sewers are overflowing. Disease lies in wait. Medicine is in short supply, expensive or unobtainable. Most of the medical infrastructure is in ruins.

Many cannot afford what little food is available. The old, the most vulnerable go to the Red Cross canteens for a hot meal and wrap up with care the piece of bread which will be their dinner.

Families are separated. Many who fled are now too afraid to return. Many who remained are now too afraid to stay.

Children step on mines and are blown to pieces.

Our six colleagues lost their lives although they themselves had come to a hospital to bring the breath of life. Like all ICRC delegates, they believed in a humanitarian ideal. An ideal which means reaching out to our fellow human beings.

A delegate's life is brimming with enthusiasm. At difficult moments, it is also filled with fear and, beyond fear, with a certain fatalistic acceptance. But not acceptance of crime.

A delegate's life is a fabric woven from courage, from intense joy when humanitarian action brings comfort, from acute pain when what has been done is undone. It is a life of work, of abnegation, of self-control, a life filled sometimes with tensions but sometimes too with laughter, friendship and mutual help. It is life as part of a team. For many, it is LIFE in the true sense. Though it may be lived amidst ruins and amongst people at the extremes of deprivation, it is also lived at the heart of the solidarity which unites them.

For us at the ICRC, the death of these six delegates has affected thousands of other lives - those of all our local staff and expatriates from Switzerland and the National Societies, and those of all the victims of the Chechen conflict who are now paying the price of their murder. Yet, far from leaving us disheartened, this tragic loss must unite us in rejecting the intolerable, the insupportable. It must unite us behind the ICRC to make the institution even stronger in serving the victims of conflict.

This loss must also induce us to reflect. Life cannot simply resume tomorrow as though nothing had happened. There was a time before Novye Atagi and there is a time after. What the future holds we know not, but surely it must be different. The limits of horror have been breached. If we are to come the wiser through this ordeal, we must learn some lessons from it. It is not only the ICRC that has been called into question, but the provision of humanitarian aid anywhere in the world.

The loss we feel here at the ICRC is not ours alone. It is yours, too. It is shared by all of you who are present here today, representatives of States and of humanitarian organizations, journalists, colleagues and friends. Not only because you are here to mourn with us but because, unless you respond to it, this loss will deal a severe blow to an ideal shared by all humanity.

Respond? Yes, but how? By expressing, as we are doing here, your sorrow and your indignation. Humanitarian volunteers are finding themselves more and more often in the firing line. What is this world coming to if, in certain countries, neither the Red Cross nor the Red Crescent can offer their services? If they are reduced to the role of onlookers, standing helplessly by as the evils of conflict continue in secure isolation. What is the world coming to if so many fine words and commitments remain so often without effect? A world in which the silence and inactivity of those capable of taking political action to put an end to violations of humanitarian international law can be so closely akin to compromise. In which the situation is so chaotic that the ICRC can no longer identify or find those who deal in violence in order to establish a dialogue with them. In which humanitarian workers are becoming pawns in the game of politics. In which hopes of peace can be jeopardized by cowardice.

This world is our world. Let us not delude ourselves. You owe it to our colleagues of Novye Atagi and to all the other humanitarian workers who have lost their lives, you owe it to them - and to yourselves - to respond. Again and again and again. To make sure that this world is not the world inherited by our children.

What conclusions can we draw? Words are not enough. Perhaps there is no conclusion. Let our thoughts turn to the families of our colleagues who have died in Chechnya and in Burundi, to our team of delegates spread out all over the world, though particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, who are carrying on their task while they still grieve. Let our thoughts turn to the civilian population of Chechnya - both Russian and Chechen - who have suffered so much; to the wounded and especially those at the Novye Atagi hospital whom we have been forced to leave behind; to the prisoners; to those who are sick, hungry, cold and afraid.

Let our thoughts turn to those who are no longer with us. Let our thoughts rest on the Tree of Life of the Red Cross. This is their tree. For ever and ever.