Red Cross denounces lack of conflict mediation as aid needs explode

By Emma Farge

A lack of political leadership in brokering peace deals is prolonging conflicts and stretching aid groups tasked with addressing their worst impacts, a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday.

By the ICRC's count, more than 120 armed conflicts are raging around the world, from Gaza, where a more than year-long war between Israel and Hamas has reduced the enclave to ruins, to Sudan, where an 18-month battle has caused a massive humanitarian crisis with more than 11 million people displaced.

As a consequence humanitarian needs have exploded globally at a time when some key donors have indicated that their aid budgets may shrink.

"What we need today is a rediscovery of and almost a re-legitimisation of mediation efforts in conflict," Pierre Krahenbuhl, director-general of the ICRC told Reuters. "I find in today's world, there's an absence of the mediators, the negotiators. It seems like today, political courage is described as, 'I won't talk to the other side'."

"We end up as humanitarians facing the heartbreaking human tragedies on a scale that is very concerning currently."

Krahenbuhl was speaking on the sidelines of a global conference in Switzerland organised by the ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, attended by parties to the Geneva Conventions and some 190 national aid groups.

The conference held every four years has previously launched a campaign to ban landmines and adopted disaster relief guidelines. One of this meeting's goals is to approve a motion seeking a formal recommitment to international humanitarian law, fixed in the wake of the atrocities of World War Two.

However, rights experts repeatedly point to violations of such rules in many of the ongoing conflicts, with the U.N. rights chief last week saying such rules were being "progressively dismantled" in Gaza.

"Currently, (there’s) a level of lack of respect for international humanitarian law and human dignity that is deeply concerning because - if this is the benchmark that we are collectively allowing to be set - then that is really raising many questions for how the future will look in terms of conflict dynamics," said Krahenbuhl.

The ICRC is a neutral, independent organisation based in Geneva that helps people around the world affected by armed conflict and other violence alongside its Red Cross and Red Crescent partners.