The Red Cross: 150 years of humanitarian action - in pictures

UK during the first world war, 1913. The British Red Cross provided food, clothing and medical equipment for refugees, and trained many nurses
Photograph: ICRC

Hungary during the first world war. A Hungarian Red Cross ambulance car near the front lines. The wounded are given first aid before being evacuated
Photograph: ICRC

Famine in Russia, 1921 to 1923. A joint relief operation was carried out by organisations including the ICRC. Here, food aid is transported on carts pulled by camels
Photograph: ICRC

Zimbabwe, 1979. A Red Cross medic examines a child
Photograph: ICRC

Ethiopia, 1984. Food distribution organised by Ethiopian Red Cross volunteers. The estimated death toll was more than 1 million
Photograph: ICRC

Badakhshan, north-east Afghanistan, 1989. An ICRC team during a two-month mission in the northern provinces Photograph: Cédric Piralla/ICRC

Bosnia. A family in the Tuzla refugee camp the war in the early 1990s. The British Red Cross helped refugees in the UK register with doctors, enrol their children in school and reunite with their families
Photograph: ICRC

Rwanda 1994. Red Cross volunteers monitor and assist displaced people during the genocide
Photograph: ICRC

Rwanda, 1994. A father searches for his lost child using the ICRC family tracing service
Photograph: ICRC

Pakistan. After the earthquake in 2005, roads in the affected region were impassable. A helicopter made it possible to transport the wounded and, as here, to bring food and other vital items
Photograph: Fred Clarke/ICRC

Nariño, Colombia, 2010. Doctors and nurses from the ICRC, the medical mission and the department of health travel from Negrito to Barbacoas in dugout canoes, to bring healthcare to the people living in these isolated areas
Photograph: Christoph Von Toggenburg/ICRC

Libya, 2011. The main operating theatre of Ibn Sina hospital that was left in ruins after sustained bombardment
Photograph: André Liohn/ICRC

Syria, 2013. The ICRC unload aid supplies for those caught up in the civil war
Photograph: Ibrahim Malla/ICRC