As in past years, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross sent a message, transmitted on radio and television in many countries, in French, English, German, Spanish and Italian:

Civilian populations reduced to famine, women and children buried beneath the ruins of their bombed homes, burnt-out ambulances, prisoners and detainees deprived of communication with their families and subjected to intimidation and torture, statesmen and diplomats kidnapped or assassinated, aircraft hijacked and their passengers held as hostages, unbridled violence and brutal repression; such was the horror of war during the year which is now drawing to a close.