Red Cross

Red Cross, international agency for the relief of victims of war or disaster. Its two aims are to alleviate suffering and to maintain a rigid neutrality so that it may cross national borders to reach those otherwise unaidable. An international committee founded by J.H. Dunant and four others from Geneva secured 12 nations' signatures to the first of the Geneva Conventions (1864) for the care of the wounded. Aid was given to both sides in the Danish-Prussian War the same year. During World Wars I and II the Red Cross helped prisoners of war, inspecting camps and sending food and clothing parcels; it investigated about 5 million missing persons and distributed $200 million in relief supplies to civilians. The International Red Cross won the Nobel Prize in 1917 and 1944. It works through the International Committee (1880), made up of 25 Swiss citizens. Over 100 national Red Cross societies (Red Crescent in Muslim countries) carry out peacetime relief and public health work.