The head of the United Nations glides silently into a waiting room at the organisation’s New York headquarters wearing a sombre dark blue suit, a white shirt and a pale blue tie with a UN tie clip.Ban Ki-moon, 71, has just been on the phone to British prime minister David Cameron, pleading with him, “as an important leader of Europe”, to take more refugees from Syria.

It is a topic close to Ban’s heart. Sixty-five years ago, as a child in Korea, he was forced to leave home when his village was sucked into the country’s brutal war. Ever since, he has felt a particularly strong affinity with victims of violence.

“I was six years old,” he recalls. “I had to flee with things on my back. It was big difficulty finding something to eat. I was always crying, crying, crying, without knowing what was going on. All the schools were destroyed. We were just sitting under the shadow of a tree, on the ground.”