It is necessary, first of all, to define what is understood here by the expression “reuniting of families”.

In this article, the term is used in a narrow sense. It refers to the humanitarian protection given, on an international plane, for the reuniting of the members of one and the same family, who have been separated from each other against their will, as a result of external events—international wars, civil wars, internal disturbances, grave political tension—and who have ended up in different countries on either side of a frontier which they find impossible to cross. In most cases, the difficulties involved for such persons to obtain permits allowing them to leave a particular country and enter another are practically insurmountable. It is such persons who are referred to here and it is to them that the ICRC endeavours to bring its assistance.

Francis Bacon once wrote that a man who does not treat his neighbour humanely is not truly human. The ideal of the Red Cross is much greater than its own action. It does not therefore limit itself to assistance and protection, but demands that everyone must respect the human person, his life, liberty and happiness—in other words, everything that constitutes his existence. This must naturally correspond to the requirements of public order and, in wartime, of military necessity.

At its meeting on 1 March 1979, the ICRC Assembly appointed to the Executive Board Dr. Athos Gallino, a medical doctor, mayor of Bellinzona and a member of the ICRC Assembly since 1977. The ICRC is gratified to know that its Executive Board will henceforth have the benefit of Dr. Gallino's wide experience.

The September-October 1978 edition of the International Review of the Red Cross announced the coming into force, on 7 December 1978, of the Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, following the ratification by the Republic of Ghana and the accession of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The Joint Commission entrusted with the distribution of the income of the Empress Shôken Fund met in Geneva on 2nd May 1979. The Japanese Red Cross Society was represented by Mr. S. Taniguchi of the Permanent Delegation of Japan to the International Organisations in Geneva, in the absence of H. E. Ambassador M. Sawaki.

At the beginning of June, the ICRC made a further appeal to governments and National Red Cross Societies for their material and financial support to continue its humanitarian activities for the victims of the conflicts in Africa. It requested, for the period from 1 July to 31 December,the sum of 35.8 million Swiss francs, equivalent to about 5 million Swiss francs per month. The ICRC warned prospective donors that, if no help was swiftly forthcoming, it would be compelled to reduce the activities of its delegations in various African countries, and that the consequences would mean considerable hardship for the people in need of ICRC aid.