We remember Jakob Sturzenegger
Jakob Sturzenegger was born on 23 May 1926 in St Gallen, Switzerland. After doing his primary, secondary and professional schooling in that same city, he worked for several years for the Swiss national railway company. Shifting gears, he then decided to study medicine – which he did in Zurich and Paris from 1951 to 1957 – and went on to specialize in surgery.
After gaining his early hospital experience in Switzerland, Jakob followed his humanitarian instincts and began providing his much-needed services in various developing countries. From 1961 to 1963 he worked in Congo, as the district medical officer for the World Health Organization, and as the head of the Swiss Red Cross’s hospital in Kinshasa. From there he went on to Rwanda where, from 1964 to 1966, he was in charge of Rwamagana Hospital on behalf of Switzerland’s overseas development and cooperation agency (the forerunner of today’s Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation). He also spent six months in Korea serving as the delegation doctor at the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission.
In 1971, Jakob took on the role of permanent head of medical services for the Swiss Red Cross. The following year, in recognition of his extensive experience in the area of war surgery, the Swiss Red Cross appointed Jakob head of its medical team at the hospital in Luang Prabang, then the royal capital of Laos. In addition to enhancing the technical skills and level of service provided at the hospital, Jakob systematically trained local doctors and nurses. His efforts helped improve the health of numerous people in the region.
Over the years, Jakob made his mark at both the individual level and within his profession more broadly. In one particularly notable example of the former, he courageously removed an unexploded grenade from the leg of an 18-year-old girl in Luang Prabang. And in an example of the latter, Jakob helped streamline the Swiss Red Cross’s medical fieldwork by standardizing the equipment of the time as well as by reducing the number of drugs used from some 2,300 to 60.
In early 1975 the Swiss Red Cross asked Jakob to travel from Vientiane, Laos, where he was living with his wife and ten-year-old son, to southern Viet Nam to kick off a new assistance programme for victims of the ongoing war. He planned to use the opportunity to visit, on the ICRC’s behalf, prisoners who were being held in a camp in Saigon. Unfortunately, on 12 March, the Air Vietnam plane carrying Jakob and 30 other passengers and crew members from Vientiane to Saigon crashed – possibly owing to anti-aircraft fire – while flying over the conflict zone in southern Viet Nam. There were no survivors. Jakob was 49 years old. Malcolm ‘Mac’ Riding from New Zealand Red Cross was as well on board.
Jakob was a highly qualified and experienced war surgeon guided by a single-minded commitment to helping others. He put his unique skills to use however and wherever he could – whether as a hands-on practitioner, team leader or advisor. Once he had found his humanitarian path, he never deviated from it.
The ICRC in
Viet Nam, 1975
In 1975, when Jakob flew from Vientiane to Saigon, he travelled from one civil war – in Laos – to another one – in Viet Nam – while passing near a third one – in Cambodia. Those three countries, which together made up Indochina, were a particular focus for the ICRC until the mid-1970s. That region had been plagued by civil strife since the 1950s: the Viet Nam War began in 1955; the Laotian Civil War in 1959; and the Cambodian Civil War in 1967. As it happened, all three of these conflicts were fuelled by communist uprisings, and all three came to an end in the months following Jakob’s death in 1975. Given the complexity of the situation in Indochina, with various foreign governments backing one side or another, Red Cross support was provided through a number of entities: the ICRC; the League of Red Cross Societies (today’s IFRC ); the Indo-China Operational Group (IOG), whose task was to coordinate Red Cross assistance operations; International Red Cross Assistance in Indo-China (IRCA); and numerous countries’ National Societies. In Viet Nam, the ICRC’s scope of action in 1974 and early 1975 was limited. In the north, we were able to maintain contact with the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, as our delegate-general had visited Hanoi on two occasions, while the IOG made progress on a prefabricated housing project for families affected by bombings. In South Viet Nam, the ICRC visited prisoners of war twice in 1974 and once in early 1975. We did not meet with any civilian detainees during that period because we had suspended such visits in 1972 after limits on our access to detainees were put in place. We also provided medico-social care to around 2,000 orphaned, handicapped and disabled children in 1974 and early 1975. The IOG continued to deliver the equipment needed for a 250-bed hospital, while the IRCA maintained its provision of aid to victims of the hostilities, especially displaced people. We also kept up contact with the Provisional Revolutionary Government in South Viet Nam, in a reflection of our goal of assisting all victims of the conflict on an equal basis. The humanitarian situation in Viet Nam
worsened significantly in early 1975, yet the civil war finally came to an end following the takeover of Saigon by revolutionary forces on 30 April. The ICRC’s room for manoeuvre in Cambodia during this period was not much greater. Toward the end of 1974 our delegates carried out a first visit to prisoners of war held by the government, and talks were under way to expand these visits. In early 1975, together with the League, we were able to provide material assistance to some 300,000 displaced people; build around 20 camps for displaced people; and provide medical and nutritional support at various points around the country. The IRCA distributed relief supplies in cooperation with the Khmer Red Cross for displaced and wounded people, and IRCA-related medical and surgical teams worked in hospitals in Phnom Penh and other places around the country. Our contacts with the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia were sporadic, and we were only able to provide a small quantity of medical supplies to that government's officials in the field. The civil war in Cambodia effectively ended in April 1975, when revolutionary forces took control of Phnom Penh. Lastly, Red Cross activities in Laos were also a mixed bag. Various National Societies provided regular medico-surgical services in several provincial towns during this time, while the ICRC engaged in assistance work. Part of this consisted of distributing relief supplies, together with the Lao Red Cross, to displaced people on behalf of the IRCA. In 1974 ICRC delegates visited around 170 prisoners of war (POWs) in Vientiane and provided them with relief items. Because all POWs were exchanged in September and October 1974, our teams were able to focus their efforts on relief activities in 1975. Towards the end of that year, the Lao monarchy was abolished and the communists took power.