Intercross: The Podcast

In 2017, a battle raged in Mosul, as Iraqi armed forces and their international supporters fought to dislodge Islamic State fighters from the city. Almost 2 million people—half of Mosul’s population--fled from the fighting. During the battle, over 9000 civilians were killed and more than 130,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. In the latest episode, we hear from the staff at one of the hospitals decimated by the fighting. Then we turn to our team in Mosul and ask: How do largely populated cities like Mosul, after so much destruction and human tragedy, carry on after the conflict ends?

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Following the end of the Islamic State Group’s caliphate in Mosul, Iraq in 2017, hundreds of women and children were detained in facilities throughout Iraq and Syria, and left in a state of limbo, not knowing when or if they would be released and repatriated into third-party countries. In this episode, we meet one family that has at least partly managed to leave detention and the war behind them to find a home in the Kyrgyz Republic with the help of their host community. We then speak to Elena Esanu, the ICRC’s deputy protection coordinator in Kyrgyzstan, to talk about how the ICRC is working in these host communities to build acceptance and help this family and others reintegrate into society. We ask Elena whether this family’s reintegration experience is a blueprint for other countries of origin to follow for families who remain stranded and separated.

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While media images showed the initial destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam leaving thousands of homes underwater and civilians without electricity or clean drinking water, it wasn’t able to show the unexploded ordnances lurking under the surface, affecting untold numbers of people. Today go to the Kherson Region, which has been heavily impacted unexploded ordnances, and hear from civilians and a Ukrainian Red Cross worker on the ground about how the contamination of landmines has frozen every day life. Then we turn to an interview with the Head of Weapons Contamination in Kyiv, Andy Duncan, to explain how this work is the very core of the ICRC’s mandate.

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Today, we have an archived episode for you from last year called “Inside the Central Tracing Agency.” It’s a 150-year-old division of the ICRC that today is a crucial resource for families searching for loved ones gone missing due to conflict, violence, natural disasters, or along the migration route.

 We hope to be back in the New Year with all new episodes for you. So stayed tuned and enjoy!

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The level of armed violence in Haiti—akin to what we see in areas of conflict around the world—has had a direct and devastating impact on the population living in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. For about the last two years, these neighborhoods have been living under protracted armed violence and suffer from the absence of basic services like safe drinking water, and emergency healthcare. In this episode, we hear from a Haitian Red Cross volunteer about their work on an ambulance service despite the violence and lack of medical infrastructure. And then we turn to an interview with Mickael Payet, the former ICRC health coordinator in Haiti, to talk about how we work with HRC volunteers in communities to ensure access to emergency health service when people need it most.

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TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains sounds of an explosion and may be disturbing to some listeners. 

Digital dilemmas surrounding internet connectivity, artificial intelligence, and data surveillance are becoming more ubiquitous in our everyday lives as technology advances. It’s difficult to keep pace with those changes. But now picture yourself with one of these digital dilemmas in the midst of an armed conflict or other situation of violence anywhere in the world. This week on the podcast, how do technologies affect our choices and options in a crisis? And, what is the International Committee of the Red Cross doing to alleviate some of these issues? We walk through a hypothetical scenario based on real-life stories with our senior advisor on digital technology and data protection, Laura Walker McDonald, and then interview Philippe Marc Stoll, ICRC’s senior techplomacy delegate in Geneva.

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Welcome to the 2022 season of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Intercross: The Podcast. If you’re new to the podcast, our goal is to delve into the rules of war and takes you to the frontlines of some of the most inaccessible conflicts in the world, where the ICRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement work to neutrally and independently respond to emergencies.

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In this episode, we learn about the Ubumwe Community Center in Gisenyi, Rwanda, their motto, “disability is not inability,” and the importance of inclusion, especially in communities affected by violence. We first hear from one of the center’s student musicians about how the center’s music program has given him opportunities to perform for others. We then turn to Subhash Sinha, the ICRC’s Physical Rehabilitation Program Manager for east Africa to hear about our work providing prosthetics and orthotics and supporting inclusionary sports programs.

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Intense hostilities in Yemen have raged for more than seven years. The needs are severe and deepen by the minute with more than two-thirds of Yemen’s people in need of humanitarian assistance.  All, while essential services are on the brink of collapse and people are losing hope as the conflict appears to drag endlessly. In these past decades, the ICRC has been providing a wide array of humanitarian assistance including support to hospitals, improving access to clean water, and food parcels and relief items to people who have been displaced. However, one of the more challenging activities the ICRC facilitates in Yemen is monitoring the treatment and living conditions of tens of thousands of people—mostly men and some as young as 13--detained due to the prolonged conflict. We also work to facilitate the release and reunification of the detainees with their families when agreed upon by parties to the conflict.

In this episode, we speak with Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC’s head of the Middle East region, who tells the story of the organization’s largest wartime transfer operation of detainees in the past 70 years and reflects on what it means for the future of Yemen.

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Following the change of government in August 2021, most of the health workers in Afghanistan were no longer getting paid. Medicines were no longer available, and many health professionals deserted the country’s hospitals in search of incomes. As a result, patients were sometimes refused access to treatment and the overall healthcare system in the country was on the verge of coming to a full stop. In this episode, we ask, what does the future of sustainable healthcare look like for millions of Afghans in need of lifesaving healthcare?

We speak with Dr. Mariam Moksudi, a gynecologist at Rabia Balkhi Hospital in Kabul and one of the 10,500 health care staff the ICRC is supporting through the Hospital Resilience Project.

Then we turn to Ana Lucia Bueno, ICRC’s health coordinator in Kabul, who explains how the ICRC has been supporting hospitals for decades and began the project after the change of government in August last year.

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