People & lives

He inherited a refugee agency built only for Europe

The UN's refugee body was created with a narrow, largely European remit, and the decade Sadruddin Aga Khan spent leading it is when that scope broke open to the rest of the world. He took the post in 1966 and held it until 1977, a stretch that spans much of the era's displacement outside Europe. Born in France, buried in Switzerland, heir to a dynastic religious lineage, he spent his working life on people who had lost their place entirely. It is a short entry on a figure whose job description quietly changed shape under him.

He led the UN refugee agency for eleven years, from 1966 to 1977, and left no children; his grave is in Switzerland.

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