Sheryl
Thayer
Sheryl Thayer profile's picture
Russia
I
- Apuleius

Nous nous souvenons de Sheryl Thayer

Sheryl Thayer was born on 6 December 1956 in the town of Gore, on New Zealand’s South Island. She qualified as a registered general and obstetric nurse in 1979 in Dunedin and started work as a staff nurse in the city’s Public Hospital. Later that year she spent four months as the sole registered nurse on the Palm Island Aboriginal Reserve, near Townsville, Australia. In 1980 Sheryl moved to London, England, where she spent three years working for a nursing agency. She then returned to New Zealand and found a position as a staff nurse at Wellington Public Hospital. Sheryl worked in the hospital’s accident and emergency unit from 1984 to 1988. During her time there, she gained a postgraduate accident and emergency certificate; she later completed an advanced disaster management course in Australia (1988).


Sheryl was intelligent, dynamic, practically minded and had a great sense of humour. She was someone who was never afraid to voice her opinions whatever the subject. At the same time, she had a reserved, sensitive side, known to those family members and friends with whom she had forged the deepest of bonds. These unshakable ties gave her the confidence and freedom to strike out on the different and diverse path that she had chosen for herself.


Seconded from the New Zealand Red Cross (NZRC), Sheryl embarked on her first ICRC assignment in January 1989. Her destination was the Khao-I-Dang surgical hospital, close to the border between Thailand and Cambodia, where she spent six months as a surgical ward nurse and head nurse. She returned to New Zealand in July 1989, where she became the charge nurse at the Auckland Central Medical GP surgery and accident clinic. This was followed by a three-month stint at Wellington Public Hospital as a staff nurse on the recovery unit.


In June 1990 Sheryl was back on assignment with the ICRC, this time in Kabul, Afghanistan, working as a surgical ward nurse. She spent nine months there. She then returned to Khao-I-Dang in August 1991 for a one-year ICRC assignment as a surgical ward nurse and acting head nurse. In January 1993 she began a postgraduate course in operating theatre nursing while working as a staff nurse at Wellington Public Hospital. The ICRC came calling once again in July 1994, with Sheryl spending six months as a surgical ward nurse in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.


In early December 1996, Sheryl started a new assignment with the ICRC in the Russian republic of Chechnya, again seconded from the NZRC. She was based in the village of Novye Atagi, some 20 kilometres south-west of the capital Grozny, where the ICRC had opened a field hospital. Sheryl arrived full of enthusiasm, brimming with energy and committed to her work as a surgical ward nurse.


In the early hours of 17 December 1996, six delegates, including 40-year-old Sheryl, were shot dead by masked gunmen in their rooms in the ICRC residence next to the field hospital. Like Sheryl, four other murdered delegates had been seconded to the ICRC from National Red Cross Societies: Ingebjørg Foss, 42, and Gunnhild Myklebust, 50, both nurses with the Norwegian Red Cross; Hans Elkerbout, 47, a construction manager with the Netherlands Red Cross; and Nancy Malloy, 51, a medical administrator with the Canadian Red Cross. The sixth delegate was head nurse Fernanda Calado, 49, from Spain, who had worked for many years with the ICRC. Another delegate, Christophe Hensch, a Swiss national in charge of the ICRC's Novye Atagi office, was shot and survived.


Jean de Courten, the ICRC’s director of operations, called the attack a cowardly, “deliberate assassination”. Following the tragedy, the ICRC evacuated its remaining 14 delegates from Novye Atagi. Local medical staff continued to care for patients at the hospital. Speaking at a memorial ceremony at Saint-Pierre Cathedral, Geneva, just days after the attack, ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga said: “All six were dedicated to the ideal of solidarity with the victims of the Chechen conflict. They were fulfilling with exemplary enthusiasm the original mission of the Red Cross – to care for wounded – and they were doing it in the same spirit as the women of Solferino: ‘Tutti fratelli’ [We are all brothers].”


Sheryl was a highly professional and experienced nurse who was driven by a strong sense of justice and an unwavering commitment to those in her care. She lived by her own high standards and followed her heart, always putting others first and giving her all. Anything less just wouldn’t have been right.


Le CICR en
Russia, 1996

For the ICRC, as for other international humanitarian organizations working in the northern Caucasus, the year 1996 was fraught with security problems. However, nothing could prepare the ICRC for the tragedy that was to strike four months after the Russian and the Chechen sides agreed a ceasefire: the cold-blooded murder of six delegates, including Sheryl, at the Novye Atagi field hospital during the night of 16/17 December.


The year began with renewed fighting in the Republic of Chechnya between Russian federal troops and Chechen separatists. This caused successive waves of civilians to leave for neighbouring republics. Those who did not flee remained trapped in their homes for weeks at a time by constant shelling. In May, under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, representatives of the federal government, the Chechen government and the separatists met in Moscow and signed a preliminary ceasefire accord. Tension soon mounted again and resulted in a large-scale federal offensive in July. For three weeks, villages in southern Chechnya sustained heavy attacks, while military and civilian targets in Grozny came under almost constant fire. On 6 August separatist forces launched an offensive on Grozny and took control of the city after two weeks of bitter fighting. Federal forces delivered an ultimatum announcing their intention to storm the capital unless the separatists withdrew. Around 200,000 civilians fled the city.


The conflict had disastrous effects on public utilities in many localities, leaving the population without drinking water, electricity and proper sanitation for prolonged periods. As in the previous year, people in some parts of Grozny relied entirely on the ICRC to provide water. All the city’s hospitals were destroyed or badly damaged during the fighting, leading to our decision to open a field hospital in Novye Atagi.


Thanks in part to the diplomatic efforts of the international community, negotiations resumed, resulting in a ceasefire concluded in Novye Atagi on 22 August. On 31 August the parties signed an agreement in Khasavyurt, Dagestan, providing for the withdrawal of federal troops; settlement of the status of the Republic of Chechnya within five years; and the establishment of a joint commission to put the agreement into effect. Although differences persisted, there was no more fighting. In November the Russian president decreed the withdrawal of all federal troops, paving the way for elections to be held in the Republic of Chechnya early the following year.


Throughout the year, security was a major concern for the ICRC. The hazardous conditions led to staff reductions and tightened security measures. In July, after yet another security incident, the ICRC delegate general, accompanied by the head of our Moscow delegation and the head of our mission in the northern Caucasus, met the Russian minister of internal affairs in Moscow. The aim was to secure his support in avoiding further incidents. In October our new delegate general met the president of the Republic of Chechnya in Novye Atagi. Security problems were again discussed. More incidents involving ICRC staff and those working for other organizations ensued in November, mostly the result of banditry. Additional security measures were put in place, but to no avail. The murders of 17 December forced the ICRC to suspend all programmes requiring the presence of international staff within Chechnya; only a limited number of activities continued, carried out by the local Red Cross committees and the ministry of health.


It was a particularly tragic year for the ICRC. Earlier in 1996, three delegates – Cédric Martin, Reto Neuenschwander and Juan Ruffino – were brutally killed in Mugina, Burundi.


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