While the number of deaths and injuries rises in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of people seek refuge in neighbouring countries, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is working to get staff and equipment into areas most affected by the Russian military offensive. Bérengère Guais, deputy head of emergency programmes in Paris, explains the challenges and … Read more
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has ended one of its largest interventions responding to the health and humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Our response to the Syrian refugee crises in Jordan started in 2013, through an emergency surgical hospital in Ramtha to treat war-wounded patients crossing the borders from southern Syria. In 2014, a 40-bed post-operative care … Read more
Twenty years after the start of the so-called global ‘War on Terror’ [1], counter-terrorism policies and their consequences are rendering the provision of impartial medical care more dangerous and difficult. Humanitarian workers and groups must be given exemptions from counter-terrorism measures. These are among the findings of a new report, Adding salt to the wound, which Médecins Sans … Read more
It has been 50 years since Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) launched our medical humanitarian work and 20 years since the start of the ‘Global War on Terror’. In those 20 years, counter-terrorism has come to define military operations far beyond those launched by the United States in response to the attacks of 11 … Read more
After the rapid transfer of power in Afghanistan there has been a big shift in the health context. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to run medical activities in five provinces. Below two medical staff working in Lashkar Gah and Khost provinces describe the recent changes they have witnessed, and how they affect both patients and … 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
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
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
“Where I come from, this crisis has affected many people, people are scared. Some of them have run away from the village, some have run to Nigeria leaving their husbands and children behind. This crisis has affected us with so many things, people came to our village and burnt down the houses of others – … Read more
Following repeated incidents of violence towards refugees and migrants held in two detention centres in Tripoli, Libya, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has announced that we feel obliged to temporarily suspend our activities in Mabani and Abu Salim detention centres. “This is not an easy decision to make, as it means we won’t be present in detention centres where … Read more