11 Facts About Gino Strada

Gino Strada was an Italian war surgeon, human rights activist, peace activist, and founder of Emergency, a recognized international non-governmental organization.

Gino Strada was born on 21 April 1948 in the Milanese suburb of Sesto San Giovanni.

Gino Strada then studied and trained as a heart-lung transplant surgeon in several major hospitals abroad, including the Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh medical centers in the United States and the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

In 1994, along with his wife and a group of colleagues, Gino Strada founded Emergency, a medical humanitarian organisation based in Milan.

Gino Strada's main focus throughout his career was to help victims of war, including direct casualties of conflict and those who, as a result of war, had no access to healthcare leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases.

Gino Strada then opened a new maternity centre in Afghanistan in 2003, which became a reference point in the Panjshir Valley and the surrounding provinces.

In 2007, Gino Strada opened the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the first hospital in the region to offer free, high-quality cardiac surgery to patients who would have otherwise been unable to access treatment.

Gino Strada worked in the centre until 2014, and today it has treated patients from 30 different countries, both within Africa and further afield.

Gino Strada had a heart condition, and had undergone a quadruple bypass operation after suffering a heart attack in Iraqi Kurdistan when he and his team came under fire from the forces of Saddam Hussein.

Gino Strada was married to Teresa Sarti, who was co-founder with her husband of Emergency and president of the organization.

Gino Strada married Simonetta Gola, Emergency's communications manager, in June 2021.