Mukesh Kapila: The international humanitarian

Biography

Mukesh Kapila, 64, is professor of global health and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester. He qualified in medicine and public health, working for the NHS in Oxford, Cambridge, and London before being drawn into international humanitarian affairs. As a British government official in the 1990s he dealt with the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Serving as the head of the United Nations in Sudan in 2003-04 he witnessed mass crimes against humanity in Darfur. His strong protests led to his expulsion and to writing Against a Tide of Evil, a book documenting what was then confirmed by the International Criminal Court as genocide. “We can argue the words, but that would be no consolation to those people who were affected,” he says. He has served as a member or an adviser to many international bodies and was appointed a CBE in 2003.