Dwindling supplies of fuel and medicine mean that Lebanon’s healthcare system is rapidly disintegrating as the country – which has been without a government for a year now – grapples with one of the worst economic crises in the world. Our teams are directly experiencing the consequences of the system’s collapse and are gravely concerned … Read more
More than a week after an earthquake destroyed his home and fractured the bones of his leg, two-year-old Widnika sleeps in a bed at MSF’s Tabarre hospital in Port-au-Prince as his mother Widline sits with him. The 7.2 magnitude quake began at 8:29 a.m. local time on 14 August and ended a few minutes later. In those … Read more
“The constant fear and the feeling of being close to death is horrific,” says Wafa Muhammad Abdullah. “We have been bombarded with shells. A shell once hit my sister and injured one of her eyes. I can never forget seeing her bleeding.” “We run and hide when the bombing starts,” Wafa says. “My children hide … Read more
Xavier Kernizan is an orthopaedic surgeon who normally works at MSF’s Tabarre hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Since the 14 August earthquake, he has been working with an MSF surgical team in Jérémie, and describes what he’s seen. What did you do the day of the earthquake? I was returning home from MSF’s Tabarre hospital and I felt … Read more
Last week, after weeks of intense fighting, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, also known as the Taliban) entered the city of Kabul as the government collapsed. The IEA declared war over and assumed control over the country. While many people and organisations have fled Afghanistan, our teams are staying put, providing essential medical care to … Read more
On Saturday, August 14, at 8:30 am local time, the earth trembled in the southern peninsula of Haiti. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake caused severe damage to buildings, houses and main access roads in the three provinces of Grand’Anse, Nippes and Sud. The provisional death toll is estimated at more than 1,300 with more than 5,700 people … Read more
Nearly three months after an escalation in violence in the Gaza Strip left 256 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead, the situation across Palestine remains volatile. The Gaza conflict took place against a backdrop of rising insecurity in the West Bank, with attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians up in comparison to the same period in 2020. In the first … Read more
One year into the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen; stigma, disinformation, fear of detention and lack of knowledge on the presence of isolation centres continue to deter people from seeking timely treatment for the disease. “Some patients stay at home for a while after they get symptoms and may arrive in the late stages of the disease,” … Read more
The violence in Afghanistan has surged since May with fighting around and inside provincial capitals between the Afghan forces and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, also known as the Taliban). This is impeding access to medical care, increasing the number of people killed and wounded by bullets and explosions, and causing widespread displacement. In three areas … Read more
This month, South Sudan – the world’s youngest country – marks its tenth birthday. In 2019, illustrator Ella Baron visited the town of Pibor to document the lengths that some mothers must go to reach maternity care in this part of the world. The birth story of Maria and her mother Laito unravels as an … Read more