Dr. Gino Strada died this morning at his home in Normandy. He continued his commitment in favor of people in need of care.
Gino Strada, the founder of the NGO Emergency, died today, Friday, August 13, at 73 years old. The first to report the news was the Corriere della Sera. Gino Strada had started the activities of the NGO Emergency 25 years ago, after having gained experience as a critical care surgeon in war scenarios. He operates in Pakistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina before creating with some colleagues Emergency. He graduated in medicine and surgery in 1978, and later specialized in emergency surgery, Strada has collaborated with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with various health organizations in the world. He is active in surgical and traumatological medicine and has several activities in specialized centers such as the universities of Stanford and Pittsburg, the Harefield Hospital in England and the Groote Schuur Hospital in Capetown, South Africa.
Together with a group of medical colleagues, in 1994 he founded Emergency as a humanitarian association for the relief and rehabilitation of war victims and anti-personnel mines. There are more than 11 million people who have received assistance from Emergency in areas of war and conflict where sometimes even other large NGOs refuse to go for lack of security. At his active, Strada published several books including “Green Parrots: a war surgeon diary” and “Buskashì. I travel inside the war“.
This morning the newspaper La Stampa published an editorial by Gino Strada dedicated to the crisis in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have occupied – again – the biggest part of the Country, and are now heading for Kabul. Rescue Press has dedicated to the theme of war surgeon life, a webinar in the past week, with an interview with the Emergency Hospital surgeon Giovanni Cipolotti.