Mukesh Kapila

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Dr. Mukesh Kapila is the Special Representative for HIV and AIDS of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).^[1] He was formerly a Director in the Department of Health Action in Crises of the World Health Organization. An employee of the government of the United Kingdom, he was on secondment to the United Nations. In 2003-2004 Kapila was the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and the UN Development Program Resident Representative for the Sudan and, from 2002-2003, he was a Special Adviser to the United Nations, first to the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan and then to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Previously, he was Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs unit of the British Department for International Development from 1998 to 2002.^[2] As a mid-level civil servant in 1994, he was part of the first British teams to see the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide after entering Rwandan Patriotic Front-controlled Kigali.^[3]

Kapila's background is in medicine, public health and, subsequently, international development. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the International Peace Academy. In 2003, he was honored by Queen Elizabeth II and named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his international service.

Dr. Kapila resides in the UK and Switzerland. He is married with three daughters.

While stationed in Sudan, he was outspoken in his condemnation of the human rights abuses being committed in the western region of Darfur. His activism began after a Darfuri woman came to his office to tell him how she, her daughter and 200 other women in the village of Tawilla had been gang-raped and mostly murdered by government soldiers and paramilitaries.^[3] His reports about the Darfur conflict were at the time dismissed by the Government of Sudan as a "a heap of lies", though they succeeded in bringing Darfur to the attention of the world's media for the first time. Kapila was subsequently transferred out of Sudan in April 2004, only 13 months into a 24 month assignment.^[4] Commenting in 2006 on this period, Kapila stated:

There is debate about whether we had genocide in Darfur or not, but certainly in my mind, and the mind of many, many people, I think there is very little doubt that what went on in Darfur in 2003 and the early part of 2004 was certainly genocide. We can argue the words, but that would be no consolation to those people who are affected.
So I subsequently went on to speak about it publicly, having tried the various diplomatic routes and avenues, and I soon found myself hauled onto a plane out of Khartoum. And as I reflected back on it, I thought to myself that there I was presiding over the first genocide of the 21st century – it is a place in history you don’t wish to have.^[3]