Ricardo Munguia was born in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, on 19 November 1964. He completed his secondary education at the Colegio San Francisco, San Salvador, in 1983, finishing with a diploma in natural sciences. The following year he began a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of El Salvador. This was a dark time for his country, which was in the grip of a brutal civil war – an experience that influenced Ricardo deeply. Desperate to help others, he became a volunteer with the Salvadorean Red Cross Society. His local humanitarian work sparked a yearning for an international career with the Red Cross. It was a dream that would eventually become a reality.

Ricardo had his first experience of the ICRC in 1988 when he joined the delegation in San Salvador as an environmental sanitation assistant. Two years later he moved to Switzerland where he worked as a nursing assistant in Zurich hospitals. He got married, had a daughter and would later become a Swiss citizen. Ricardo returned to San Salvador in 1993, where he was employed as a technician by the environmental NGO Asociación Amigos del Árbol. In 1995 he joined the country’s national parks and forestry service as technical manager for protected zones.

Thanks to a study grant, Ricardo was back in Switzerland later that year to begin a master’s in environmental sciences, specializing in water, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). After finishing his studies in 1997, Ricardo spent a year working as a water and sanitation engineer with the medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières, first in Pucallpa, Peru, and then in Liberia.

In 1999 he rejoined the ICRC as a water and habitat (WatHab) engineer, starting with a one-year assignment in Bogotá, Colombia. This was followed by a posting in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, where Ricardo earned a reputation as someone who was warm, friendly and good at solving problems. His next stop was the ICRC subdelegation in Kuito, Angola, in May 2001. One of his tasks was to supervise the maintenance and repair of water and sanitation facilities at the regional hospital in Huambo. Full of energy, Ricardo was great to be around. He was a strong believer in maintaining a healthy work-life balance and even set up a small social club for colleagues in the house where he was staying.

In November 2002 Ricardo was sent to Afghanistan, first to the ICRC’s subdelegation in Jalalabad before moving to the Kandahar subdelegation in March the following year. While fully focused on his work, Ricardo continued to live life to the full. Colleagues recall him wanting to teach everyone in Afghanistan to salsa. They also remember him as someone who always put others first.

On 27 March 2003 Ricardo was travelling with Afghan colleagues to improve the water supply in the city of Tirin Kot, north of Kandahar, when unidentified gunmen stopped their vehicles. Ricardo was shot and killed He was 39. 

Throughout his career, Ricardo combined his professional skills and limitless love of life with a heartfelt compassion for those who needed help. As the then president of the ICRC Jakob Kellenberger said at his memorial ceremony in Geneva, Ricardo came from a country at war and understood the pain of those he met.