On 23 October 1984 the BBC broadcast a news report of the famine devastating Ethiopia. One of the most powerful and enduring images was of a young woman, surrounded by 85,000 starving people, with the terrible task of choosing which children went to a feeding centre and which were too far gone to be saved.

Claire Bertschinger, an International Red Cross nurse, ran two feeding centres and was the central figure of Michael Buerk’s report. In a now famous piece of footage, he asked, “Does that do anything to you?’ 'What do you expect?’ she replied. ‘It breaks my heart.’

by Vida Adamoli

Buerk thought Claire was a heroine. To her he was an arrogant ‘prat’ asking ’stupid questions’. What she didn’t realise that day, however, was that Buerk’s film of the famine would inspire Bob Geldof to launch Band Aid, followed by Live Aid in 1985. It was the biggest relief programme ever mounted, raising more than £150m and saving an estimated 2m lives in Africa. ‘In her was vested the power of life and death,’ Geldof is quoted as saying. ‘She had become God-like, and that is unbearable for anyone.’

Claire Bertschinger, who comes from Switzerland, has fought to save lives in many of the world’s most desperate trouble spots. Before Ethiopia she worked in Lebanon, Panama, Papua New Guinea and Sulawesi. Subsequently she took her skills and commitment to Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and other countries in West Africa. In 2004 she returned to Ethiopa with Michael Buerk and the BBC for a follow-up documentary, Ethiopia – A Journey with Michael Buerk.

Claire’s experience of human suffering, the horror of the appalling choices she had been forced to make in Ethiopia, haunted her for twenty years. It motivated her to search for a philosophy capable of answering her many ‘whys?’ – such as why some people enjoyed endless plenty while others had nothing at all? This spiritual quest led her to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and its lay organization, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI). She shared its dedication to fostering humanistic principles and creating a just, war-free world. Claire talks about her Buddhist faith in a 2005 Times interview; Journey from Famine to the Hunger of the Soul.

Today Claire lives in London, where she lectures and runs the Diploma in Tropical Nursing at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has received a series of awards for her work, including the BISH medal from the Scientific Exploration Society in 1986, Florence Nightingale Medal in 1991, the Women of the Year Award 2005 Window to the World Award, and in 2007 she received the Human Rights in Nursing Award from the International Centre for Human Rights and Nursing Ethics. Her book Moving Mountains, written with Fanny Blake about her experience in Ethiopia, was published by Transworld in 2005.