Foundation in 1870 , author of
A Memory of Solferino Until the middle of the nineteenth century, there were no organized or well-established army nursing systems for casualties, nor safe or protected institutions, to accommodate and treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. A devout
Calvinist, the Swiss businessman
Jean-Henri Dunant traveled to Italy to meet then-French emperor
Napoleon III in June 1859 with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in
Algeria, which at that time was occupied by
France. He arrived in the small town of
Solferino on the evening of 24 June after the
Battle of Solferino, an engagement in the
Austro-Sardinian War. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care of the wounded. He took part in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance with the local villagers to aid without discrimination. , 1864 Back at his home in
Geneva, he decided to write a book entitled
A Memory of Solferino, which he published using his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe, and people he thought could help him make a change. His book included vivid descriptions of his experiences in Solferino in 1859, and he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war, inspired by Christian teaching regarding social responsibility and his experience after the battlefield of Solferino. He called for the development of an international treaty to guarantee the protection of medics and field hospitals for soldiers wounded on the battlefield. In 1863,
Gustave Moynier, a Geneva lawyer and president of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, received a copy of Dunant's book and introduced it for discussion at a meeting of that society. As a result of this initial discussion, the society established an investigatory commission to examine the feasibility of Dunant's suggestions and eventually to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee, which has subsequently been referred to as the "Committee of the Five", aside from Dunant and Moynier were physician
Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend and colleague
Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; and
Guillaume-Henri Dufour, a
Swiss army general of great renown. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded".
International conference From 26 to 29 October 1863, the international conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five members of the International Committee. The states and kingdoms represented by official delegates were:
Swiss Confederation,
Austrian Empire,
Grand Duchy of Baden,
Kingdom of Bavaria,
French Empire,
Kingdom of Hanover,
Kingdom of Italy,
Kingdom of the Netherlands,
Kingdom of Prussia,
Russian Empire,
Kingdom of Saxony,
Kingdom of Wurtemberg,
United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, and
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Among the proposals written in the final resolutions of the conference, adopted on 29 October 1863, were: • The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers; • Neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers; • The utilization of volunteer forces for relief assistance on the battlefield; • The organization of additional conferences to enact these concepts; • The introduction of a common distinctive protection symbol for medical personnel in the field, namely a white armlet bearing a red cross. (Denmark) in 1864; jointly erected in 1989 by the national Red Cross societies of Denmark and Germany
Geneva Convention, national societies, and ICRC Only a year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the
United States, the
Empire of Brazil and the
Mexican Empire, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of 26 delegates to Geneva. On 22 August 1864, the conference adopted the
First Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the convention: • • • • • • • • • • • • The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict. Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France,
Oldenburg, Italy, Prussia, Spain, and Württemberg. Also in 1864,
Louis Appia and
Charles van de Velde, a captain of the
Dutch Army, became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict. The
Ottoman government ratified this treaty on 5 July 1865. The
Turkish Red Crescent organization was founded in the Ottoman Empire in 1868, partly in response to the experience of the
Crimean War (1853–1856), in which disease overshadowed battle as the main cause of death and suffering among
Turkish soldiers. It was the first Red Crescent society of its kind and one of the most important charity organizations in the
Muslim world. In 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened. Also in 1867, Jean-Henri Dunant was forced to declare
bankruptcy due to business failures in
Algeria, partly because he had neglected his business interests during his tireless activities for the International Committee. The controversy surrounding Dunant's business dealings and the resulting negative public opinion, combined with an ongoing conflict with Gustave Moynier, led to Dunant's expulsion from his position as a member and secretary. He was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy and a warrant for his arrest was issued. Thus, he was forced to leave Geneva and never returned to his home city. In the following years, national societies were founded in nearly every country in Europe. The project resonated well with patriotic sentiments that were on the rise in the late-nineteenth-century, and national societies were often encouraged as signifiers of national moral superiority. In 1876, the committee adopted the name "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official designation today. Five years later, the
American Red Cross was founded through the efforts of
Clara Barton. More and more countries signed the Geneva Convention and began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. In a rather short period of time, the Red Cross gained huge momentum as an internationally respected movement, and the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work. When the first
Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, the
Norwegian Nobel Committee opted to give it jointly to Jean-Henri Dunant and
Frédéric Passy, a leading international
pacifist. More significant than the honor of the prize itself, this prize marked the overdue rehabilitation of Jean-Henri Dunant and represented a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of
Heiden. Only two months earlier his long-standing adversary Gustave Moynier had also died, leaving a mark in the history of the committee as its longest-serving president ever. 's Red Cross flag with which in 1905 he prevented an attack by the Russian army In 1906, the 1864 Geneva Convention was revised for the first time. One year later, the
Hague Convention X, adopted at the Second International Peace Conference in
The Hague, extended the scope of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Shortly before the beginning of the
First World War in 1914, 50 years after the foundation of the ICRC and the adoption of the first Geneva Convention, there were already 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had extended itself beyond Europe and North America to Central and South America (
Argentine Republic, the
United States of Brazil, the
Republic of Chile, the
Republic of Cuba, the
United Mexican States, the
Republic of Peru, the
Republic of El Salvador, the
Oriental Republic of Uruguay, the
United States of Venezuela), Asia (the
Republic of China, the
Empire of Japan and the
Kingdom of Siam), and Africa (
Union of South Africa).
World War I . International Prisoners-of-War Agency. Researches department. German section. Express messages and communications to families. With the outbreak of
World War I, the ICRC found itself confronted with enormous challenges that it could handle only by working closely with the national Red Cross societies. Red Cross nurses from around the world, including the United States and Japan, came to support the medical services of the armed forces of the European countries involved in the war. On 15 August 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War Agency (IPWA) to trace
POWs and to re-establish communications with their respective families. The
Austrian writer and pacifist
Stefan Zweig described the situation at the Geneva headquarters of the ICRC: However, by the end of the year, the Agency already had some 1,200
volunteers who worked in the
Musée Rath of Geneva, amongst them the
French writer and pacifist
Romain Rolland. When he was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature for 1915, he donated half of the
prize money to the Agency. Most of the staff were women, some of whom – like
Marguerite van Berchem,
Marguerite Cramer and
Suzanne Ferrière – served in high positions as pioneers of
gender equality in an organisation dominated by men. By the end of the war, the Agency had transferred about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million
Swiss francs in monetary donations to POWs of all affected countries. Furthermore, due to the intervention of the Agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity and returned to their home country. The organizational card index of the Agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923. The card index led to the identification of about 2 million POWs and the ability to contact their families. The complete index is on loan today from the ICRC to the
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. The right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the ICRC. During the entire war, the ICRC monitored warring parties' compliance with the
Geneva Conventions of the 1907 revision and forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. When
chemical weapons were used in this war for the first time in history, the ICRC mounted a vigorous protest against their use. Even without having a mandate from the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. In territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories", the ICRC could assist the civilian population on the basis of the
Hague Convention's "Laws and Customs of War on Land" of 1907. This convention was also the legal basis for the ICRC's work for prisoners of war. In addition to the work of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency as described above, this included inspection visits to POW camps. A total of 524 camps throughout Europe were visited by 41 delegates from the ICRC through the end of the war. s of the
16th Infantry,
1st Division, upon their arrival in Paris, July 4, 1917 Between 1916 and 1918, the ICRC published a number of
postcards with scenes from the POW camps. The pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. After the end of the war, between 1920 and 1922, the ICRC organized the return of about 500,000 prisoners to their home countries. In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded
League of Nations, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat and scientist
Fridtjof Nansen as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners". His legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees". Nansen, who invented the
Nansen passport for stateless refugees and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies. A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work. It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. In 1923, the
International Committee of the Red Cross adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the committee. This limitation was expanded to include all Swiss citizens. As a direct consequence of World War I, a treaty was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea" was established. The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies. As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population in occupied territories during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference. Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of
World War II.
World War II at choreographed
Theresienstadt visit. Most of the children were murdered at
Auschwitz in the fall of 1944. The Red Cross' response to
the Holocaust has been the subject of significant controversy and criticism. As early as May 1944, the ICRC was criticized for its indifference to
Jewish suffering and death—criticism that intensified after the end of the war, when the full extent of the Holocaust became undeniable. One defense to these allegations is that the Red Cross was trying to preserve its reputation as a neutral and impartial organization by not interfering with what was viewed as a German internal matter. The Red Cross also considered its primary focus to be
prisoners of war whose countries had signed the
Geneva Convention. The Geneva Conventions in their 1929 revision formed the legal basis of the work of the ICRC during World War II. The activities of the committee were similar to those during World War I: visiting and monitoring
POW camps, organizing relief assistance for
civilian populations, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War (
Agence centrale des prisonniers de guerre) had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. One major obstacle was that the
Nazi-controlled
German Red Cross refused to cooperate with the Geneva statutes, including blatant violations such as the deportation of Jews from Germany, and the
mass murders conducted in the
Nazi concentration camps. Two other main parties to the conflict, the
Soviet Union and Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions. During the war, the ICRC was unable to obtain an agreement with
Nazi Germany about the treatment of detainees in
concentration camps, and the ICRC eventually abandoned applying pressure, saying later it did so in order to avoid disrupting its work with POWs. The ICRC was also unable to obtain a response to reliable information about the
extermination camps and the mass killing of European Jews,
Roma, et al. After November 1943, the ICRC achieved permission to send
parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the concentration camps
Dachau,
Buchenwald,
Ravensbrück, and
Sachsenhausen. , delegate of the ICRC, visiting
POWs in Germany
Maurice Rossel was sent to Berlin as a delegate of the International Red Cross; he visited
Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1944. The choice of the inexperienced Rossel for this mission has been interpreted as indicative of his organization's indifference to the "Jewish problem", while his report has been described as "emblematic of the failure of the ICRC" to advocate for Jews during the Holocaust. Rossel's report was noted for its uncritical acceptance of
Nazi propaganda. He erroneously stated that Jews were not deported from Theresienstadt.
Claude Lanzmann recorded his experiences in 1979, producing a documentary entitled
A Visitor from the Living. On 12 March 1945, ICRC president Jacob Burckhardt received a message from SS General
Ernst Kaltenbrunner allowing ICRC delegates to visit the concentration camps. This agreement was bound by the condition that these delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. Ten delegates, among them Louis Haefliger (
Mauthausen-Gusen), Paul Dunant (
Theresienstadt), and Victor Maurer (
Dachau), accepted the assignment and visited the camps. Louis Haefliger prevented the forceful eviction or blasting of Mauthausen-Gusen by alerting American troops. three weeks after the
atomic bombing Friedrich Born (1903–1963), an ICRC delegate in
Budapest, saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 Jewish people in
Hungary.
Marcel Junod (1904–1961), a physician from Geneva, was one of the first foreigners to visit
Hiroshima after the
atomic bomb was dropped. In 1944, the ICRC received its second Nobel Peace Prize. As in World War I, it received the only Peace Prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. At the end of the war, the ICRC worked with national Red Cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. In 1948, the Committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from 1 September 1939 to 30 June 1947. The ICRC opened its archives from World War II in 1996.
After World War II; 20th century . On 12 August 1949, further revisions to the existing two Geneva Conventions were adopted. An additional convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea", now called the second Geneva Convention, was brought under the Geneva Convention umbrella as a successor to the
1907 Hague Convention X. The 1929 Geneva convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" may have been the second Geneva Convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in Geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third Convention because it came later chronologically than the Hague Convention. Reacting to the experience of World War II, the
Fourth Geneva Convention, a new Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War", was established. Also, the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars. Today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, while there were only 10 articles in the first 1864 convention. In celebration of its centennial in 1963, the ICRC, together with the
League of Red Cross Societies, received its third Nobel Peace Prize. On 16 October 1990, the
UN General Assembly granted the ICRC
observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino. An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993 affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the committee from any interference by Switzerland. The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland. At the end of the
Cold War, the ICRC's work became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates died than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were: •
Nancy Malloy (Canada) and five others. They were shot at point-blank range while sleeping on 17 December 1996 in an ICRC field hospital in the
Chechen city of
Nowije Atagi near
Grozny. Their murderers have never been caught. • Ricardo Munguia (El Salvador). He was working as a water engineer in Afghanistan and travelling with local colleagues on 27 March 2003 when their car was stopped by unknown armed men. He was shot, while his colleagues were allowed to escape. His killing prompted the ICRC to temporarily suspend operations across Afghanistan. •
Vatche Arslanian (Canada). He worked as a logistics coordinator for the ICRC mission in Iraq. He was killed while travelling through Baghdad together with members of the Iraqi Red Crescent. On 8 April 2003 their car accidentally came into a cross-fire of fighting. • On 27 January 2002, Palestinian Red Crescent volunteer paramedic and
suicide bomber Wafa Idris was transported to
Jerusalem, by a Red Crescent ambulance, whose driver was part of the plot, and killed herself while committing the
Jaffa Street bombing.
21st century Afghanistan In the 2000s, the ICRC has been active in the
Afghanistan conflict areas and has set up six physical rehabilitation centers to help
land mine victims. Their support extends to the national and international armed forces, civilians and the armed opposition. They regularly visit detainees under the custody of the Afghan government and the international armed forces, but have also occasionally had access since 2009 to people detained by the
Taliban. They have provided basic first aid training and aid kits to both the Afghan security forces and Taliban members because, according to an ICRC spokesperson, "ICRC's constitution stipulates that all parties harmed by warfare will be treated as fairly as possible". In August 2021, when
NATO-led forces retreated from Afghanistan, the ICRC decided to remain in the country to continue its mission to assist and protect victims of conflict. Since June 2021, ICRC-supported facilities have treated more than 40,000 people wounded during armed confrontations there.
Russo-Ukrainian war Among the ten largest ICRC deployments worldwide has been the mission in
Ukraine, where the organization has been active since 2014, working closely with the
Ukrainian Red Cross Society. At first, the ICRC was active primarily in the disputed regions of
Donbas, assisting persons injured by the fighting there. When
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the fighting moved to more populated areas in East, North, and South Ukraine. The head of the ICRC delegation in
Kyiv warned on 26 February 2022 that neighborhoods of major cities were becoming the frontline with significant consequences for their populations, including children, the sick, and elderly. The ICRC urgently called on all parties to the conflict not to forget their obligations under
international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of the civilian population and infrastructure, and respect the dignity of refugees and
prisoners of war. In response to events in the conflict, the organisation issued
rule of engagement for civilian hackers.
Gaza war Prior to the
Gaza war Israeli authorities required Palestinian ambulances to undergo thorough searches when passing through checkpoints, alleging without proof that the policy was driven by Palestinian organizations using ambulances to transport militants and armaments. The Israeli Ministry of Health said that: In October 2023, the ICRC responded to the
Gaza war that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. The ICRC has called the violence "abhorrent" and implored both sides to reduce the suffering of civilians. The ICRC, working closely with their Red Crescent partners, has a neutral, independent and exclusively humanitarian mandate during such escalations of violence in the Middle East and urged all parties to protect the lives of civilians, to reduce their suffering and protect their dignity. During the violent conflict, the ICRC and the
Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) provided hospitals in the Gaza strip with support through large humanitarian convoys from
Egypt, and was seriously affected by numerous aerial attacks on medical facilities and ambulances. The ICRC said in November that civilians have "overwhelmingly borne the brunt" of the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and Israel so far. Israeli forces have killed over 25,000 people, including civilians, Israeli nationals, and Hamas members in a devastating bombing campaign and ground offensive. In late November 2023, the team of the ICRC started a multi-day operation to facilitate the release and transfer of hostages held in Gaza and of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank. In early December, US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken insisted that the Red Cross delegation must have access to the remaining hostages. The ICRC is not a negotiating power but the ICRC chief had direct talks with senior Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh in
Qatar in November, demanding direct access to the remaining hostages. In January 2024, Israeli forces killed a Red Crescent crew who had been sent to rescue the Palestinian girl
Hind Rajab, who was also killed by Israeli gunfire along with her family. Despite attempts by the Israel to deny responsibility for the killings, their involvement has been confirmed by repeated investigations by independent teams. Before sending its volunteers, the Red Crescent had previously coordinated the rescue route with the Israeli army. In March 2025, 15 Red Crescent workers were
ambushed and killed by Israeli soldiers near
Rafah, the deadliest attack on Red Crescent personnel since 2017. One worker, who was later killed, recorded the arrival of the paramedic convoy at the site of a distress call, and the start of the shooting: a group of medics in reflective outfits, driving well-marked emergency vehicles with flashing lights and headlights on, approaches a previously-attacked Red Crescent ambulance before being shot at for five minutes. Access to the site was originally forbidden, though satellite images showed the six vehicles were moved to the roadside, crushed, and buried by Israeli bulldozers. Five days after the shooting, the UN and Red Crescent negotiated access to the site and found the bodies buried in a mass grave alongside the vehicles. One witness survived, who was imprisoned by the IDF for two months following the incident. The video was released a month later, drawing international condemnation and criticism to the IDF over a statement it had made after the attack. The IDF claimed that a self-investigation had shown that the unit's commanding officer gave an inaccurate and incomplete account of the attack, and the unit's commander was fired.
IFRC History , Founding father of the League of Red Cross societies In 1919, representatives from the national Red Cross societies of Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the US came together in Paris to found the "League of Red Cross Societies" (IFRC). The original idea came from
Henry Davison, who was then president of the
American Red Cross. This move, led by the American Red Cross, expanded the international activities of the Red Cross movement beyond the strict mission of the ICRC to include relief assistance in response to emergency situations which were not caused by war (such as man-made or natural disasters). The ARC already had great disaster relief mission experience extending back to its foundation. The formation of the League, as an additional international Red Cross organization alongside the ICRC, was not without controversy for a number of reasons. The ICRC had, to some extent, valid concerns about a possible rivalry between the two organizations. The foundation of the League was seen as an attempt to undermine the leadership position of the ICRC within the movement and to gradually transfer most of its tasks and competencies to a multilateral institution. In addition to that, all founding members of the League were national societies from countries of the
Entente or from associated partners of the Entente. The original statutes of the League from May 1919 contained further regulations which gave the five founding societies a privileged status and, due to the efforts of Henry Davison, the right to permanently exclude the national Red Cross societies from the countries of the
Central Powers, namely Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, and in addition to that the national Red Cross society of Russia. These rules were contrary to the Red Cross principles of universality and equality among all national societies, a situation which furthered the concerns of the ICRC. The first relief assistance mission organized by the League was an aid mission for the victims of a famine and subsequent
typhus epidemic in Poland. Only five years after its foundation, the League had already issued 47 donation appeals for missions in 34 countries, an impressive indication of the need for this type of Red Cross work. The total sum raised by these appeals reached 685 million Swiss francs, which were used to bring emergency supplies to the victims of famines in Russia, Germany, and Albania; earthquakes in Chile,
Persia, Japan, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Turkey; and refugee flows in Greece and Turkey. The first large-scale disaster mission of the League came after the 1923 earthquake in Japan which killed about 200,000 people and left countless more wounded and without shelter. Due to the League's coordination, the Red Cross society of Japan received goods from its sister societies reaching a total worth of about $100 million. Another important new field initiated by the League was the creation of youth Red Cross organizations within the national societies. A joint mission of the ICRC and the League in the
Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 marked the first time the movement was involved in an internal conflict, although still without an explicit mandate from the Geneva Conventions. The League, with support from more than 25 national societies, organized assistance missions and the distribution of food and other aid goods for civil populations affected by hunger and disease. The ICRC worked with the
Russian Red Cross Society and later the society of the
Soviet Union, constantly emphasizing the ICRC's neutrality. In 1928, the "International Council" was founded to coordinate cooperation between the ICRC and the League, a task which was later taken over by the "Standing Commission". In the same year, a common statute for the movement was adopted for the first time, defining the respective roles of the ICRC and the League within the movement. During the
Abyssinian war between Ethiopia and Italy from 1935 to 1936, the League contributed aid supplies worth about 1.7 million Swiss francs. Because the Italian fascist regime under
Benito Mussolini refused any cooperation with the Red Cross, these goods were delivered solely to Ethiopia. During the war, an estimated 29 people died while being under explicit protection of the Red Cross symbol, most of them due to attacks by the Italian Army. During the
civil war in Spain from 1936 to 1939 the League once again joined forces with the ICRC with the support of 41 national societies. In 1939 on the brink of the Second World War, the League relocated its headquarters from Paris to Geneva to take advantage of Swiss neutrality. ,
King Olav of Norway, ICRC president Leopold Boissier, League Chairman John A. MacAulay. In 1952, the 1928 common statute of the movement was revised for the first time. Also, the period of
decolonization from 1960 to 1970 was marked by a huge jump in the number of recognized national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. By the end of the 1960s, there were more than 100 societies around the world. On 10 December 1963, the Federation and the ICRC received the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1983, the League was renamed to the "League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies" to reflect the growing number of national societies operating under the Red Crescent symbol. Three years later, the seven basic principles of the movement as adopted in 1965 were incorporated into its statutes. The name of the League was changed again in 1991 to its current official designation the "International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies". In 1997, the ICRC and the IFRC signed the
Seville Agreement which further defined the responsibilities of both organizations within the movement. In 2004, the IFRC began its largest mission to date after the
tsunami disaster in South Asia. More than 40 national societies have worked with more than 22,000 volunteers to bring relief to the countless victims left without food and shelter and endangered by the risk of epidemics. ==Activities==