VERSOIX, Switzerland – The phone ringing in an office near the quiet shores of Lake Geneva is a constant reminder of the devastation about 1,500 miles away in Ukraine.
Distressed callers are hoping to find any sign of loved ones, including many who went missing weeks ago. an explosion kills dozens of Ukrainians in a Russian-controlled detention center. Making the calls – about 900 a day – are employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross, helping to track down those missing in conflicts and disasters around the world.
“She was on the street. I heard air raid sirens, small explosions, people screaming,” Mathias Issaev recounted a call from a Ukrainian woman looking for a husband. “Once she got past us, she didn’t want to give up.”
Some callers are grateful to reach anyone who will listen; many people are overwhelmed with suffering. Call operators like Issaev make up the front lines of the ICRC Central Tracing Service, which has worked to reunite people separated by war for more than 150 years. The work doesn’t end when the fighting stops – it continues cases dating back to Lebanon’s civil war in the 1970s.
During the Ukraine war, the Red Cross is trying to track down about 13,000 individuals – Russians and Ukrainians, soldiers and civilians – in the biggest tracing operation since World War Two. But since last month’s explosion at a detention camp in Olenivka, a town in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia, phone operators have also faced a barrage of abuse. Callers denounced them as lazy and traitors, or taking sides in the conflict.
Our Report on the Russo-Ukrainian War
“We’ve had a lot of hate speech,” said Esperanza Martinez, the agency’s Ukraine crisis team leader. The threatening calls and emails, including death threats, pose a new threat to the agency’s humanitarian mission, she said.
The Red Cross operates under the Geneva Convention as a neutral intermediary between the warring parties, whose job it is to provide detailed information about their prisoners and allow access. But misconceptions about the agency’s role persist, including the belief that it was supposed to ensure the safety of prisoners or could force parties to comply with the laws of war.
Red Cross officials visited the Olenivka camp in May to observe the prisoners and deliver buckets of water. But they were unable to reach an agreement with the Russian authorities to visit it after the explosion, which exposes the dealer’s leverage limitations. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the explosion.
“A lot of what we do is silence,” Ms. Martinez said, adding: “For that we are vilified.”
Such explanations offer little consolation to callers like a Ukrainian mother who contacted operator Louis Depuydt. She had seen images on the social network Telegram of her son, a prisoner of war, with broken teeth, black eyes and other signs of abuse.
Mr Depuydt said: ‘She was crying, her voice was shaking, you could feel her panic. “You have to deal with a lot of emotions, a lot of fear, a lot of anger.”
The constant exposure to pain and suffering takes a toll on operators, even those handling email inquiries. Given an appeal from a woman searching for her daughter, Inna Laschenko of the tracing team shed tears.
“Hold on my beautiful girl, me and you. I love you so much,” began Ms. Laschenko, a mother of two, reading the text aloud. Her voice faltered, and she paused to wipe her eyes. She could only whisper the last words of the message: “Please, help me.”
