Flowers were laid on the memorial at the “Visegrad Gate” in Sarajevo's Vratnik neighbourhood on the 32nd anniversary of the death of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ delegate, Frederic Maurice.

Maurice was shot, on that fateful day in May, from the position of the Republika Srpska Army while he was accompanying a convoy of medicines at the “Visegrad Gate”, for the citizens of the besieged Sarajevo, carrying out his humanitarian mission. He lost the battle of his life a day later.

Flowers were laid by the Minister of Culture and Sports of the Sarajevo Canton Samir Avdic, Head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bosnia and Herzegovina Elmir Camic, representatives of the Sarajevo Canton Red Cross, the Red Cross of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity, the City of Sarajevo, and the municipalities of Stari Grad and Ilidza.

Elmir Camic, Head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in BiH, pointed out that, unfortunately, humanitarian workers and volunteers are increasingly becoming targets, losing their lives more and more often while doing their humanitarian mission and helping people.

“Volunteers, Red Cross and Red Crescent workers are very often the first to jump in to help the people in need, risking their lives in the process. This also happened 32 years ago, here in this place,” Camic said adding:

“Just in the last eight months, for example, 18 members of the Palestinian Red Crescent have lost their lives in Gaza. Five Red Star of David workers in Israel. Last week, two of our associates were killed, two colleagues in Yemen, and three others were wounded. Last night or the night before, those two members of the Yemeni Red Crescent lost their lives. These are blatant violations of international humanitarian law. For this reason, it is very important to mark these days and thereby also raise awareness that such things should not happen.”