On 28 July Nadisha was cremated in his native Sri Lanka in a ceremony attended by his family, friends and ICRC colleagues. The following day hundreds of ICRC staff gathered in Geneva to remember their colleague.

Nothing better describes the person that was Nadisha Yasassri Ranmuthu than these last few words he wrote to his colleagues at the ICRC office in Hilla just hours before he was brutally murdered, on the last day of his mission in Iraq.

All of Nadisha's colleagues who spoke at the memorial ceremony in Geneva paid tribute to an extraordinary man whose optimism, energy and capacity to communicate across frontiers and cultural boundaries left an indelible impression on those who met him.

In a message read on behalf of the ICRC delegation in Sri Lanka, where Nadisha had worked as a radio operator since 1992, former colleague Jean-Philippe Carnat praised his willingness to devote his energies to the humanitarian cause: "You could have stayed in a comfortable job, but you chose to help others", said Mr. Carnat. "In Sri Lanka you were always with us on the airwaves when we were travelling in our vehicles, sometimes in the remotest of places, when you were the only reassuring link with 'home'."

Several speakers made reference to Nadisha's passion for amateur radio, his way of building "bridges across space" as ICRC telecommunications expert Claude Repond called it, remembering the many hours they spent discussing their shared pastime.

Addressing a hushed audience, senior ICRC officials and staff members alike praised the exceptional professional contribution made by Nadisha in Sri Lanka and Iraq and mourned the loss of a man whose boundless positive energy had inspired those around him.

"Nadisha Yassasri Ranmuthu wasn't a victim of war. He was a victim of murder," Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC, said. "His death shows that those serving the humanitarian ideal are not protected from blind hate."

Remembering the recent deaths of two other ICRC colleagues, Ricardo Munguía and Vatche Arslanian, in Afghanistan on 27 March and Iraq on 8 April respectively, Mr. Kellenberger added: "This is the third time in the space of four months that we've been here. It's a lot. It's too much. It makes us understand even better the challenges we face in trying to get close to the victims."

Among the many moving tributes to Nadisha was a poem written in Arabic by his ICRC colleagues in Iraq. One of his co-workers in Hilla, Anne-Laure Chariot, spoke of the love Nadisha had for his family, his wife Chandra Priyadarshi Subashinge, and his three-year old daughter, Kavisha. She described how Nadisha had cooked a typical Sri Lankan meal for his colleagues on the eve of his departure from Hilla. The following morning he left for his final journey - a trip that was supposed to culminate in a joyful homecoming but instead ended in tragedy.

Read press release: Iraq: One ICRC staff member killed and one wounded