Moving Mountains

by Fanny Blake (Author), Claire Bertschinger (Author), Claire Bertschinger (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  Twenty years ago, Michael Buerk's reports on the famine in Ethlopia shocked the West into action and resulted in the biggest relief programme the world had ever seen, supported by Bob Geldof and Live Aid. One of the most memorable images of that time was of the young British nurse working for the International Red Cross, who, surrounded by 85,000 starving people, had the terrible task of choosing which children to help out of all those who were too far gone to be saved. They called her 'Mamma Claire'. 'In her was vested the power of life and death,' Bob Geldof has said, 'She had become God-like, and that is unbearable for anyone.' Earlier this year Michael Buerk persuaded Claire Bertschinger to return to Ethiopia for the first time to confront her feelings of guilt, and the result was a moving documentary shown in January 04. When she joined the International Red Cross, Claire Bertschinger was fulfilling a passionate vocation for relief work in dangerous places. Apart from Ethiopia, she has worked with war wounded and hostages in Labanon, with the Mudjahadeen in Afghanistan, and with prisoners and victims of crossfire in Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Sudan. Often working in war zones under fire herself, she has shown an impressive combination of courage, commitment, compassion and resourcefulness. Her story is of a warm, charismatic woman who chose to save lives rather than settle down and start her own family - and in the process found a great personal happiness.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  One of the most enduring images of the Ethiopian famine that shocked the world in 1984 was that of the young International Red Cross nurse who, surrounded by thousands of starving people and with limited supplies, had the terrible task of choosing which children to feed, knowing that those she turned away might not last the night. That nurse was Claire Bertschinger, and those pictures inspired Live Aid, the biggest relief programme the world had ever seen. 'In her was vested the power of life and death,' Bob Geldof said. 'She had become God-like, and that is unbearable for anyone.' Michael Buerk, whose BBC documentary first showed those pictures, persuaded Claire to return to Ethiopia almost twenty years later. For all those years she had been haunted by the terrible choices she had been forced to make. But when she met them again, the survivors welcomed her back with open arms. Born in Essex, Claire Bertschinger had to overcome dyslexia to qualify as a nurse. When she joined the International Red Cross, she fulfilled a zest for adventure and a passionate vocation for relief work. She has worked with the war-wounded and hostages in Lebanon, with the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, and with victims of civil war and displaced persons in Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Sudan. Working in war zones, she often came under fire herself while trying to save the lives of others.