Gino Strada (21 April 1948 – 13 August 2021) was an Italian war surgeon,

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing cam ...

, peace activist, and founder of

Emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

, a recognized international

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

Early life and education

Gino Strada was born on 21 April 1948 in the Milanese suburb of Sesto San Giovanni. After attending the Giosuè Carducci lyceum, he studied

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and trauma surgery at the

University of Milan The University of Milan ( it, Università degli Studi di Milano; la, Universitas Studiorum Mediolanensis), known colloquially as UniMi or Statale, is a public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe ...

and graduated in 1978, specializing in emergency surgery. He then studied and trained as a heart-lung transplant surgeon in several major hospitals abroad, including the Stanford University and the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

medical centers in the United States and the

Groote Schuur Hospital Groote Schuur Hospital is a large, government-funded, teaching hospital situated on the slopes of Devil's Peak in the city of Cape Town, South Africa. It was founded in 1938 and is famous for being the institution where the first human-to-huma ...

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, South Africa.

Career

Strada worked as a doctor at a hospital in Rho near Milan, and soon decided to focus on trauma surgery and the treatment of war victims. In 1988, he began to work as a surgeon with the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

in various conflict zones, including Pakistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Afghanistan, Thailand, Djibouti, Somalia and Bosnia. In 1994, along with his wife and a group of colleagues, Strada founded

, a medical humanitarian organisation based in Milan. Since then, Emergency has treated millions of patients around the world. Strada's first project under the flag of Emergency was based in Rwanda during the

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed H ...

in 1994, and he followed this up by launching projects in Iraq, Cambodia, Eritrea and Afghanistan. Strada's main focus throughout his career was to help victims of war, including direct casualties of conflict and also those who, as a result of war, had no access to healthcare leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases.

Afghanistan

Strada negotiated with the Taliban leader Mohammed Omar when NATO deemed it impossible to deal with the groupCarole Cadwalladr
"Meet Gino Strada, unsung hero to the poorest victims of war"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' 14 July 2013 and as a result the first Emergency hospital in Afghanistan was set up in 2000 in Kabul after the Taliban turned over a former Soviet-built kindergarten to the organization.Annie Gowe
Kabul trauma center threatens to shut doors because of violence,'

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

6 June 2017 Giles Duleybr> 'I lost three limbs in Afghanistan, but had to go back … '

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

10 February 2013 Strada then opened a new maternity centre in Afghanistan in 2003, which became a reference point in the

Panjshir Valley The Panjshir Valley (also spelled Panjsher or Darah-I-Panjshir; Pashto/Dari: – ''Dare-ye Panjšēr''; literally ''Valley of the Five Lions'') is a valley in northeastern Afghanistan, north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range. It is di ...

and the surrounding provinces. The centre was recognised by the Afghan ministry of health as a centre of specialisation for gynaecology, obstetrics, and

paediatrics Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

. By 2013 Emergency was operating four hospitals and 34 clinics, while the Red Cross had withdrawn 95% of its personnel from the country on the grounds that the war had ended. From the time of its occupation, on the other hand, NATO forces had yet to build a single civilian hospital in Afghanistan.

Africa

In 2007, Strada opened the ''Salam'' Centre for Cardiac Surgery in the Sudanese capital of

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

, the first hospital in the region to offer free, high-quality

cardiac surgery Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to co ...

to patients who would have otherwise been unable to access treatment. Strada worked in the centre until 2014, and today it has treated patients from 30 different countries, both within Africa and further afield. The idea for the ''Salam'' Centre for Cardiac Surgery came from Strada's belief that the basis for the freedom and quality of human beings with regard to

dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...

and

rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...

must also extend to the right to free treatment without discrimination: "If you think of medicine as a human right, then you cannot have some hospitals that offer sophisticated, very effective, hi-tech medicine", he says, "and then go to Africa and think, 'OK, here's a couple of vaccinations and a few shots'. Do we think that we human beings, we are all equal in rights and dignity, or not? We say, 'Yes, we are.'" – interview in ''

'', 2013. This belief also meant that in 2009, Strada contributed to the creation of the ANME (African Network of Medical Excellence), with the aim of promoting the construction of Medical Centres of Excellence across Africa, based on the model of the ''Salam'' Centre for Cardiac Surgery. In 2017, construction began on the second centre to form part of the network, the Centre of Excellence in Paediatric Surgery in Entebbe,

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

, based on a plan drawn up by Strada's friend,

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City ( ...

Personal life

Strada had a heart condition, and had undergone a

quadruple bypass Coronary artery bypass surgery, also known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG, pronounced "cabbage") is a surgical procedure to treat coronary artery disease (CAD), the buildup of plaques in the arteries of the heart. It can relieve chest pai ...

operation after suffering a heart attack in

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also inc ...

when he and his team came under fire from the forces of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

. Strada was married to Teresa Sarti, who was co-founder with her husband of Emergency and president of the organization. Together, they have a daughter, Cecilia Strada (b.1979), a journalist. Shortly after Teresa's death in Milan on 1 September 2009, Cecilia was elected to take over as president of Emergency. Strada married Simonetta Gola, Emergency's communications manager, in June 2021. On 13 August 2021, he died of a heart attack while on vacation in Rouen, France, at the age of 73.

Notable views

* "If any human being is, in this precise moment, suffering, or ill, or hungry, that is something that should concern all of us because to ignore the suffering of a person is always an act of violence, one of the most cowardly."Lizzy Davies
Maestro of humanity': Italian surgeon Gino Strada dies at 73"
''

'', 13 August 2021: "Se un qualsiasi essere umano sta in questo momento soffrendo, è malato o ha fame ci deve riguardare tutti, perché ignorare la sofferenza di una persona è sempre un atto di violenza, e tra i più vigliacchi".

Books

* Gino Strada, ''Pappagalli verdi: cronache di un chirurgo di guerra'', 2000, . * Gino Strada, ''Buskashi. Viaggio dentro la guerra (A Journey inside war)'', 2003, . * Gino Strada, Howard Zinn ''Green Parrots. A war surgeon's diary'', 2004, . * Gino Strada, Howard Zinn ''Just war'', 2005, .

Awards and honors

* In 2001 Strada received the journalistic prize Golden Doves for Peace awarded by the Italian Research Institute . * Asteroid 248908 Ginostrada, discovered by Italian amateur astronomer Vincenzo Casulli in 2006, was named in his honor. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 2 June 2015 (). *In 2015 Strada was awarded the Right Livelihood Award * In 2016 Strada was named as a co-recipient along with Sakena Yacoobi of the Sunhak Peace Prize.

References

External links

Emergency official website

EMERGENCY USA: Life support for civilian victims of war and povertyEMERGENCY UK - life support for civilian war victimsThe Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery

PBS POV Documentary: ''Afghanistan Year 1380''The Horror of Landmines by Dr. Gino Strada
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strada, Gino 1948 births 2021 deaths Italian anti-war activists Italian human rights activists Italian medical writers Italian traumatologists Italian communists People from Sesto San Giovanni University of Milan alumni