[2] Strada worked as a doctor at a hospital in Rho near Milan, and soon decided to focus on trauma surgery and the treatment of war victims.

[1] In 1988, he began to work as a surgeon with the International Committee of the Red Cross in various conflict zones, including Pakistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Afghanistan, Thailand, Djibouti, Somalia and Bosnia.

[2] In 1994, along with his wife and a group of colleagues, Strada founded Emergency, a medical humanitarian organisation based in Milan.

[5][6] After the United States invasion of Afghanistan, Strada negotiated with the Taliban leader Mohammed Omar when NATO deemed it impossible to deal with the group, in order to operate a hospital behind their frontlines.

[7] Strada then opened a new maternity centre in Afghanistan in 2003, which became a reference point in the Panjshir Valley and the surrounding provinces.

[9] By 2013 Emergency was operating four hospitals and 34 clinics, while the Red Cross had withdrawn 95% of its personnel from the country on the grounds that the war had ended.