Narratives from the frontlines of human suffering

12/26/23 • 37 min

In the last Inside Geneva of 2023, UN correspondents look back at the year..and what a year it’s been.

Emma Farge, Reuters: ‘This year has felt like lurching from one catastrophe to another.’
Earthquakes, climate change, or war –the UN is always expected to step in.
Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor, New York Times: ‘This is a multilateral system that is absolutely falling apart under the strain of all the extreme events it’s having to deal with.’

Aid agencies have struggled to cope.

Imogen Foulkes, host, Inside Geneva: ‘You feel like they’re being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed between the warring parties, and the Security Council which will just never agree.’

And now, war, again, in the middle east.

Dorian Burkhalter, Swissinfo: ‘The UN has never lost that many humanitarian workers, and just seeing their helplessness you can really tell that they’ve lost their protection, and they’re totally desperate.’

Emma Farge: ‘It’s been personal for everyone, and it;s been difficult for journalists to navigate this information war and to really navigate it with your composure.’

What will 2024 bring?

Nick Cumming-Bruce: ‘We still have potentially months of conflict, and we then have the whole issue of post conflict. Well, 2024 is really going to be where we see where the rubber hits the road on that one.’

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Email us at [email protected]
Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

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For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/
Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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In the last Inside Geneva of 2023, UN correspondents look back at the year..and what a year it’s been.

Aid agencies have struggled to cope.

Imogen Foulkes, host, Inside Geneva: ‘You feel like they’re being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed between the warring parties, and the Security Council which will just never agree.’

And now, war, again, in the middle east.

Emma Farge: ‘It’s been personal for everyone, and it;s been difficult for journalists to navigate this information war and to really navigate it with your composure.’

What will 2024 bring?

Get in touch!

Email us at [email protected]
Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Previous Episode

Beyond declarations: UN voices reflect on 75 years of human rights advocacy

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The world is marking an important anniversary: the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
After the Second World War, this was supposed to be our "never again" moment. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights promises us the right to live, to freedom of expression, the right not to be tortured, to equality regardless of gender, race or religion.
So how’s that working out?
Throughout 2023 SWI swissinfo.ch has been talking to the men and women who have led the United Nations' human rights work. In this edition of Inside Geneva, we highlight those exclusive interviews.
Please have a look at this video interview of Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Why does protecting human rights matter more than ever?

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Email us at [email protected]
Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Next Episode

Israel, Gaza and the challenge to humanitarianism

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The bitter conflict in Gaza has polarised opinions. Aid agencies are caught in the middle.

Fabrizio Carboni, Regional Director of the Near and Middle East division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): “People tend to believe we can do things that actually we can’t. I mean we have no army, we have no weapons.”

Some say the ICRC hasn’t done enough to help Israeli hostages.

“If we could release them all we would do it as soon as possible. If we could visit them we would visit them. And at the same time it takes place in an environment which is Gaza,” says Carboni.
Other aid agencies have described their shock at the destruction in Gaza.

James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF said: “The level of bombardments, and the deprivation of food and water and medicines, that’s made that situation as desperate as I’ve ever seen.”

This has fuelled anger on the ground.
“I could objectively see that many attacks were indiscriminate, and safe zones had nothing to do with legal or moral safety. Those things created anger,” continues Elder.

How can aid agencies persuade the warring parties that the only side they take is humanity?

“I care about the families of the people who are taken hostages. I care about the civilians in Israel who regularly have to go in the basement, and I also care about the Palestinians. One does not exclude the other. We're not doing accounting,” concludes Carboni.

Listen to the latest episode of our Inside Geneva podcast and join host Imogen Foulkes to find out more about the situation in Gaza.

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