Over the past five years the world has seen a falling trend in fatalities stemming from organized violence. This trend was however broken in 2020 when the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) registered more than 80,000 deaths resulting from armed conflicts. The tragic images of what is now happening in Ukraine remind us of what we have seen in Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen, Nagorno-Karabakh, Afghanistan, South Sudan and many more places around the world. They add to a long list of reported war crimes with bombing on civilian centres, hospitals, schools, food warehouses and apartment buildings.
Hans Levander, who founded the Life Link Friendship Association as a peace project, was one of the first activists in the Swedish organisation Physicians Against Nuclear Weapons and the corresponding international organisation International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Life-Link was founded at the time of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Hans Levander’s concern was to create as many contacts as possible between the two sides to nurture understanding and to seek peaceful means of conflict resolution.
Life-Link is still working in this tradition. Therefore, now more than ever, Life-Link is encouraging contacts between schools and across national borders. No school in any country should be excluded. The ultimate goal is an international order built on international law and human rights, pushing war into the history books forever.