Sasha, a long-time staff member of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from Mariupol, Ukraine, describes life in the city as it was encircled and bombarded by Russian forces. For security reasons, he is using only his first name. I was born in Mariupol, and I have spent my whole life in Mariupol. I studied … Read more
Staff in the 750-bed Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital, one of the largest in central Kyiv, Ukraine, have received training and advice on mass casualty influxes (a large number of trauma patients arriving at the same time) from a visiting surgical team from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The training held on Sunday 13 and Monday 14 March, included … Read more
Aleksandr Burmin* is an MSF staff member in Ukraine. Here he recounts how war in Ukraine has displaced him for the second time in less than 10 years. As dawn broke on 24 February in Kyiv, Ukraine, I woke to the sound of explosions and the wails of air raid sirens. Huddled in my little apartment in the … Read more
More than 195,000 refugees have crossed into Slovakia since the war started in Ukraine on 24 February, according to the UN*. Our project coordinator, Marta Wnorowska, is currently on the Slovakian-Ukrainian border and describes the situation on the ground. How is the situation in the border Ukrainian town of Uzhhorod? Uzhhorod is a city two kilometres away from Slovakia, and … Read more
Thousands of Ukrainians are arriving at the Palanca border crossing in Moldova every day to escape the fighting in the south of Ukraine. Since the war began, more than 230,000 refugees (as of March 8) have arrived in Moldova. However, less than half of them have stayed – heading west to other countries in Europe. Those arriving in Palanca … Read more
Anja Wolz, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Emergency Coordinator currently based in Lviv, Ukraine, explains the urgency of this stage of the humanitarian response to the war in the country. Here in Lviv, I am getting multiple calls from hospitals with urgent appeals for assistance. We are embarking on an urgent race against time to … Read more
Carla Melki, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has just returned from the port city of Odessa in southern Ukraine, where she was part of an MSF team assessing the current situation. Our teams there have been planning activities in response to the war in the country. From Moldova, a neighbouring country to which refugees … Read more
Around 6 pm local time, Saturday 5 March, one of Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) emergency response teams in Ukraine met Oleksandr Kamyshin, Chairman of the Board of Ukrainian Railways. MSF’s first international supplies had arrived in Ukraine, and had been unloaded in the warehouse, just a few hours before. “The hospitals in Kyiv are desperate … Read more
The city of Mariupol is among the areas now heavily affected by the war in Ukraine. Multiple staff members of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are sheltering in the city with their families. One staff member gave the following account today: “The situation is the same as in recent days. Last night the shelling was harder and … Read more
Following the soul-wrenching reports we received from trapped Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff in Mariupol, Ukraine, we are closely following the ongoing reports about an agreement for the safe passage of civilians this weekend. It is vital that such opportunities for civilians to escape from areas of violent warfare are not one-off and time-limited offers. At MSF, … Read more