In this episode, we learn about the Ubumwe Community Center in Gisenyi, Rwanda, their motto, “disability is not inability,” and the importance of inclusion, especially in communities affected by violence. We first hear from one of the center’s student musicians about how the center’s music program has given him opportunities to perform for others. We then turn to Subhash Sinha, the ICRC’s Physical Rehabilitation Program Manager for east Africa to hear about our work providing prosthetics and orthotics and supporting inclusionary sports programs. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode. Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc      

Intense hostilities in Yemen have raged for more than seven years. The needs are severe and deepen by the minute with more than two-thirds of Yemen’s people in need of humanitarian assistance.  All, while essential services are on the brink of collapse and people are losing hope as the conflict appears to drag endlessly. In these past decades, the ICRC has been providing a wide array of humanitarian assistance including support to hospitals, improving access to clean water, and food parcels and relief items to people who have been displaced. However, one of the more challenging activities the ICRC facilitates in Yemen is monitoring the treatment and living conditions of tens of thousands of people—mostly men and some as young as 13--detained due to the prolonged conflict. We also work to facilitate the release and reunification of the detainees with their families when agreed upon by parties to the conflict. In this episode, we speak with Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC’s head of the Middle East region, who tells the story of the organization’s largest wartime transfer operation of detainees in the past 70 years and reflects on what it means for the future of Yemen. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode.  Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc  

Following the change of government in August 2021, most of the health workers in Afghanistan were no longer getting paid. Medicines were no longer available, and many health professionals deserted the country’s hospitals in search of incomes. As a result, patients were sometimes refused access to treatment and the overall healthcare system in the country was on the verge of coming to a full stop. In this episode, we ask, what does the future of sustainable healthcare look like for millions of Afghans in need of lifesaving healthcare? We speak with Dr. Mariam Moksudi, a gynecologist at Rabia Balkhi Hospital in Kabul and one of the 10,500 health care staff the ICRC is supporting through the Hospital Resilience Project. Then we turn to Ana Lucia Bueno, ICRC’s health coordinator in Kabul, who explains how the ICRC has been supporting hospitals for decades and began the project after the change of government in August last year. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode.  Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc

Prolonged drought, conflict, global inflation, and now a shortage of grain due to the Ukraine conflict. Somalia is particularly hard hit. Over 7 million people are in urgent need of food and water—that’s half the country’s population and equal to the populations of Los Angeles and Chicago, combined. The numbers are unfathomable. They represent millions of human stories and life experiences that don’t make headlines. Despite all of this, the ICRC has been addressing food insecurity for decades in Somalia, offering emergency assistance in places where armed conflict and violence is an everyday reality. But there’s an increasing need for alternative solutions, to improve people’s resilience over the longer term. In this episode we speak with Alyona Synenko, an ICRC spokesperson for east Africa, explains the current situation on our show today. And then, we’ll hear from our colleague Mohamud Abdille Abdi, to learn about one emergency assistance program—and how it works on the ground. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode. 

Almost 40 years after the Falkland Islands/Malvinas conflict, we look back on the ICRC’s efforts to identify unknown soldiers. Figuring who these unknown soldiers were took decades to resolve. But in 2012, the ICRC received a request from the Argentine government to help identify their remains. Then in 2016 with the ICRC as a neutral intermediary, Argentina and the UK negotiated and signed an agreement known as the Humanitarian Project Plan. The crucial work of exhuming the graves and identifying remains fell to Luis Bernardo Fondebrider, co-founder of the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team. He worked with a multidisciplinary team of scientists from around the world, who began the exhumations at the Argentine Cemetery at Darwin--on the central eastern side of the islands. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc

In this episode, we tell the story of the more than 150-year-old Central Tracing Agency, a division of the ICRC that today is a crucial resource for families searching for loved ones gone missing due to conflict, violence, natural disasters, or along the migration route. We take you for a trip back in time to the foundations of the CTA in 1860 to understand how this history has made it what it is today. You’ll hear from Geneva Tour Guide Catherine Hubert Girod and ICRC Historian Daniel Palmieri recount the history. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode. 

In this episode, we’re going to learn about how the ICRC works with what are known in Mexico as, colectivos, or groups of families and friends who unite to search for their missing loved ones and defend their rights. We speak with Beatriz Adriana Martinez about her husband, Juan Alvarez Gil’s disappearance in 2013, to understand what a family goes through when a loved one goes missing and how these colectivos support Beatriz and the hundreds of thousands of other families. We also speak with Marlene Herbig, an ICRC delegate with the Missing Persons Program in Mexico, who works to help those who are searching for their missing loved ones know their rights, and how and when to seek mental health counseling. See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode.  Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc

This mini episode kick starts the 2022 season of Intercross: The Podcast. In this episode, we rewind the tape and listen to an interview with Florence Anselmo, Head of the Central Tracing Agency, a division of the ICRC that's been a crucial resource for families affected by conflict, disaster, and other situations of violence to restore contact with their loved ones. Florence helps break down what the agency does and why it's crucial to the work of the ICRC.  See bonus materials and additional information on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode.  Follow us on Twitter @ICRC_dc

More than 10 years of brutal conflict in Syria has left most of the population in need of assistance and without access to basic services in places all over the country. In part one of our special series on Syria, Intercross heard the stories of two Syrians living in Aleppo, Mouna Shawakh and Rami Asfar, in their own words. In part two, we zoom into Northeast Syria, in a camp called Al Hol. Today Al Hol houses around 58,000 people -- two thirds of whom are children, and most under the age of 5. Tens of thousands of children are spending their childhoods in appalling harsh conditions no child should experience. For the young people now growing up in camps like Al Hol, living conditions are far below international standards in terms of access to food, water, health care and education. We talk about the seemingly insurmountable challenges of those who remain stranded living in the camp, and what the Red Cross Red Crescent movement is doing about them, such as operating a field hospital to provide emergency life-saving surgical care and medical consultations. In November 2020, the first mental health and psychosocial services tent was set up inside the field hospital to provide psycho-social support, including educational activities for the children. What could be done to try and solve what the ICRC calls one of the most complex child protection crises of our time? Featuring ICRC’s Near and Middle East Regional Director Fabrizio Carboni and ICRC psychotherapist Alessandra Lennar. Hosted by ICRC spokesperson Sara Al-Zawqari.

After 10 years of conflict in Syria, thousands of people are missing, hundreds of thousands are dead, and millions of people are displaced. In the past 12 months, millions more Syrians have been pushed into deeper hunger and poverty. In Northeast Syria, we’re seeing the world’s most complex child protection crisis unfolding in front of us. In two special episodes, Intercross shares stories of those affected by a decade of brutal and unrelenting conflict, and the efforts made by the ICRC and our partners to assist them. In Aleppo, we hear from young Syrians Mouna Shawakh and Rami Asfar, telling us in their own words about how their lives have changed due to conflict. We interview ICRC’s NAME Regional Director Fabrizio Carboni and ICRC psychotherapist Alessandra Lennar about the severe humanitarian consequences for thousands of stranded women and children living in Al Hol camp. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.