Julio Delgado was born in Bogotá, Colombia, on 21 October 1946. He attended the city’s Instituto de la Salle (1954–1965) and then spent a year at a naval cadet school in Cartagena where he gained his high school degree. After finishing school, Julio worked from 1967 to 1969 on the family farm in San Joaquín, which produced sugar cane, coffee and milk. The following year Julio moved to Europe and worked as a boiler operator in a brewery in Lille, France. Then in 1972 he got a job in the engine room of a tanker sailing out of Trieste, Italy. This marked the start of an eight-year spell in the merchant navy, working as a seaman on vessels ploughing the North Sea and the River Rhine.
In January 1981 Julio turned his hand to humanitarian aid for the first time, spending five years in Karamoja, north-east Uganda, with Action International Contre Ia Faim (AICF). He worked as a food monitor for the first year and managed a weaving project with the Karamojong tribe for the next four. Then in 1989 he joined the World Food Programme (WFP) as a food monitor based in Entebbe, Uganda. He participated in “Operation Lifeline Sudan”, the international response to the humanitarian crisis resulting from the civil war in Sudan. In January the following year he signed up with UNICEF as a logistics coordinator, organizing relief convoys to southern Sudan.
In July 1991 Julio began the first of several assignments with the ICRC that would span a decade. He was a conveyor based in Beledweyne, Somalia, organizing the unloading of ships bringing aid to the country just as the civil war there was at its height. In April 1993 he took over as relief administrator in charge of warehouses and aid distribution in Beledweyne. It was a role he would perform over the next few years for the ICRC in southern Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti. In May 1994 he spent a month in Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria, northern Tanzania, helping to set up a logistics support base for Rwandan refugees.
Rather like the convoys he managed, Julio was always on the move. He was hard-working, 100% reliable and committed to getting the job done – and not just anyhow. He attached great importance to quality in everything he did: his work, his personal relationships and his life as a humanitarian.
In November 1994 Julio joined the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as a logistics delegate in its Nairobi operations support unit, covering East Africa. A year later he was back with the ICRC, leading aid convoys across East Africa – to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi and the Somalia/Kenya border.
In May 1996 he moved to Baghdad, Iraq, to manage warehouses and logistics for the IFRC. The next stop was Afghanistan in January the following year as an ICRC relief administrator in charge of warehouses and logistics, first in Kabul and then in Herat. He returned to Nairobi in June 1998 to work as a food monitor for the WFP.
Julio rejoined the ICRC in April 1999 as a “flying relief delegate for Sudan”, based in Lokichokio, north-west Kenya. He spent a lot of time in Sudan supporting agriculture and nutrition programmes. Conditions were harsh, but neither his spirit nor his infectious joie de vivre ever dimmed. He was described as “an absolutely wonderful colleague”, someone who looked out for his team members and who was unfailingly kind.
In October the following year Julio was posted to Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a relief delegate specializing in economic security. On 26 April 2001 Julio and five other ICRC colleagues set off from the city of Bunia in two vehicles marked with the red cross emblem. They were heading for the town of Fataki, Ituri province, to assess the needs of health centres and displaced people and to distribute Red Cross messages. Later that afternoon, all six were found murdered near the town of Djugu. Alongside 54-year-old Julio were four Congolese nationals – Véronique Saro, 33, a health field officer; Unen Ufoirworth, 29, a relief field officer; Aduwe Boboli, 39, and Jean Molokabonge, 56, both drivers – and Rita Fox-Stucki, 36, a Swiss nurse from Bern.
Speaking at their memorial ceremony, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said their deaths were a “crushing blow” for the institution: “They reflect the image of the ICRC as a place where individuals of different nationalities, culture and background come together to follow the ideal of helping their fellows. In many countries we encounter people who express great affection for these men and women who ‘come from afar’ to bring assistance and protection. Some do indeed come from afar, while others belong to the area or country where they work. It is from their combined energies and their mutual trust that we derive our strength. Today we pay tribute to four Congolese, a Swiss and a Colombian who embodied these common values.”
Julio did indeed embody these common values, dedicating 20 years of his life to relieving suffering in many parts of the world. Despite working in some of the toughest environments, he always showed exemplary enthusiasm, commitment and courage.
