A great many people around the world are forced out of their homes and subjected to hunger and suffering due to frequent sectarian and ethnic strife. Impacts of global warming are also devastating.
This highlights the role of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement whose mission is to promote international and regional cooperation and solidarity geared to protecting human lives and health at risk and bringing their life back to normal.
The international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement dates back to a big battle in north Italy’s Solferino in June 1859.
The battle caused as many as 40 000 casualties to the warring parties, with the wounded abandoned and untended waiting helplessly for death. Henry Dunant, a Swiss passer-by on his business trip, was horrified to see the scene and organized volunteers from nearby villages to come to their aid.
Later, in Un Souvenir de Solferino , Dunant, an eyewitness of the Battle of Solferino, proposed the formation in all countries of humanitarian organizations capable of assisting medical activities; he also proposed an international agreement covering the war wounded.
His proposal was well received in Switzerland, followed by the formation of a relief committee for the war wounded to realize the humanitarian ideal. And the committee was renamed the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1876.
Out of the recognition that such humanitarian activities are necessary not only in wartime but also in peacetime came the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 1919.
The DPRK Red Cross Society, founded on October 18, 1946, joined the IFRC in May 1956, with an eye to preventing and alleviating pains and suffering of people, promoting public health and wellbeing and helping them lead an independent and creative life.
As a voluntary and independent humanitarian organization, the society embraces over 100 000 volunteers and more than 250 000 young RC members.
Now it wages a variety of activities to give medical lectures to people, raise their awareness of response to crises and anti-epidemic work, build resilient communities and prevent disasters, as part of its efforts to implement the state’s policies and its long-term plans and help attain the UN sustainable development goals.
May 8 is World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day.
Yang Ryon Hui
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