Eight hundred and fifteen delegates from 160 States, 39 Ministers, 20 Deputy Ministers and 12 Secretaries of State, the United Nations Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement represented by the Presidents of the ICRC and the Federation and the Chairman of the Standing Commission, and all the major governmental and non-governmental organizations active in the sphere of armed conflictthe Swiss government succeeded within the space of a few months in arranging for all these to come together in Geneva for a three-day meeting to discuss the protection of war victims and adopt a substantive declaration on the issue. The International Conference for the Protection of War Victims was undeniably a success.

On Friday 27 August 1993, at 10.30 a.m. local time, a convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross was ambushed near the town of Gorahun in Sierra Leone. During the attack two ICRC nurses, Susanne Buser from Switzerland and Sarah Leomy, a local employee, were killed. Another ICRC nurse, Bernadette Peterhans, was injured.

A delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Michel Kuhn, was killed on 28 August 1993, in a plane crash in Khorog in south-eastern Tajikistan.

Mr. Kuhn, who was 44 years old, had carried out many humanitarian missions for the ICRC since he joined its staff in 1982, in particular in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Namibia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Nagorny-Karabakh. He was due to leave Tajikistan within the next few days to take up his new ICRC post in Azerbaijan.

Though half a century old this year, the International Tracing Service has lost none of its relevance. In its 50 years of service to humanity, it has clarified the fate and whereabouts of thousands of people, reunited separated families and helped — to the extent that such a thing is possible — to make good the wrong done to those persecuted by the Nazis.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was very pleased when the management and administration of the International Tracing Service (ITS) were transferred to it on 6 June 1955. In his address during the signing ceremony, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Konrad Adenauer, congratulated the ICRC on its willingness “to take over this task in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions”. In reply the President of the ICRC, Mr. Paul Ruegger, thanked the Federal German Chancellor and representatives of the member States of the International Commission for the ITS for the reliance placed in his institution.