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      • The humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons - Ensuring nuclear weapons are eliminated and never used again
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Statement delivered by : Mr Sven Mollekleiv, Head of IFRC Delegation to the Conference and President of the Norwegian Red Cross on behalf of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Event: The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, Oslo 4–5 March 2013
Date of delivery: 5 March 2013
Focus of the statement: Call for follow up and action in ensuring nuclear weapons are never used again and are eliminated according to RC Council of Delegate resolution 1, 2011

Madame Chair

• These last two days have shown us the humanitarian horror that follows a nuclear detonation. The unparalleled destruction, the mass chaos, the unending human misery.

• ICRC President Maurer reminded us of the shocking scenes that ICRC Doctor Junod encountered in 1945 and later conveyed to the international community.

• After a nuclear weapon detonation our countrymen will look to us, as Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, to provide assistance to all those injured and dying. They will expect us to help. Even if we try, nothing we do would make a real difference. In response to a disaster of this magnitude no one can respond adequately.

• These are the reasons why 187 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC and the ICRC have appealed to States “to prohibit the use of and completely eliminate nuclear weapons”. And we repeat this appeal here today.

Madame Chair

• My colleague Dr. Tomonaga at the Japanese Red Cross Atomic Bomb Hospital in Nagasaki still receives new patients who need treatment due to radiation exposure from the atomic bombing. Nearly 70 years after.

• We still do not know how long the suffering caused by radiation released in 1945 will continue. Or how many children or grandchildren of those exposed will suffer from the genetic damage caused.

• What we do know is that as long as these weapons exist and continue to spread, the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can happen again and indeed are becoming more likely.

• The international community should neither accept nor permit the status quo to continue, drifting from the reality of Cold War nuclear arsenals into an ever more dangerous and nuclear-armed world.

• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies strongly urges every State to now do whatever is in their power to ensure that these weapons will never again be used, whether by accident or miscalculation or by madness.

Madame Chair

• I would like to end by expressing our thanks. Thanks to the Norwegian Government for hosting this conference. Thanks to Mexico for the invitation to a follow up conference. Thanks to all of you for being here today and in Mexico tomorrow. Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies look forward to be working with you - our governments – before, during and after we meet in Mexico. Together we can show the power of humanity.

Thank you Madame Chair.

Read Peter Maurer's speech.