As countries around the world grapple with the devastating effects of Covid-19, the ICRC's new DG, Robert Mardini, tells Eimear Lowe that for many people this pandemic is just "one additional mortal threat". When Robert Mardini was appointed as the new Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) last October, he was no doubt prepared for a challenge.
For over 20 years he has worked his way through the organisation which he now helms; from its frontlines in countries consumed by conflict, to the higher echelons of global diplomacy at the UN's sleek New York headquarters.
It’s an organisation Mardini knows literally from the ground up. He started there in 1997 as an engineering graduate coordinating water