Humanitarian Issues

Located in the bone-dry central Somalia, the city of Galkayo is divided in half by warring militias and separatist regional governments that continuously clash in armed confrontations. Since MSF was forced to evacuate its international staff in 2008 due to insecurity, MSF’s Somali staff has carried on the work of providing medical care to people trapped in a conflict with nowhere else to turn.

Hospitals in Conakry have been overwhelmed by an influx of hundreds of wounded following the violent repression of a large-scale protest in the Guinean capital.

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff member, who went missing following an armed robbery at the MSF compound in Adé in the east of Chad, has been safely released.  The international staff member was set free unharmed following 29 days in captivity at an unknown location, held by an unidentified armed group.

This edition of Alert comes to you in the aftermath of major violence and upheaval for civilians in northern Sri Lanka. Many were killed and injured during the first months of this year in a war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan army.

By Dr. Christophe Fournier
International Council President
Doctors Without Borders

MSF recently published From Ethiopia to Chechnya: Reflections on Humanitarian Action, 1988-1999, a collection of essays from François Jean (1956-1999). “Famine and Ideology” is an excerpt from this collection.

Goma, DRC - November 6, 2008 – Relief convoys under armed escort by MONUC, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are creating confusion between independent humanitarian assistance and military action in the North Kivu region of the country. Keeping the two separate is crucial, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

by Rony BRAUMAN
Former president of MSF-France
Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris

Geneva, July 14, 2008 – The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is shocked by the judgment rendered today by Switzerland's highest judicial body, the Federal Tribunal, which rejected the arguments of MSF in a kidnapping ransom case.

Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier, author of The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, considers the notion of the “responsibility to protect,” which has been raised, incorrectly, given the obstacles to international assistance in Myanmar following Cyclone Nargis. She is the legal director of MSF in France.

This spring, MSF will publish, From Ethiopia to Chechnya: Reflections on Humanitarian Action, 1988-1999, a collection of essays from François Jean (1956-1999). 

From Ethiopia to Chechnya: Reflections on Humanitarian Action, 1988-1999 will be available for order by May 15.

On January 28, in what was an organized attack, an MSF vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb while traveling through the port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia. The blast killed three MSF staff.

Stuck in a highly volatile security context, Sudanese refugees who have recently arrived just over the border in Birak, Chad, are in an extremely worrying situation. With ongoing combat a few kilometers away from their settlement, the lives of the refugees and those who remain in targeted areas in Darfur, are still at risk.

Paris/Bangui, June 11, 2007 -- It is with great sadness that Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has learned of the death of one of its volunteers in the Central African Republic. Elsa Serfass, a 27-year-old French citizen, was killed today by gunfire during an assessment mission in the northwestern part of the country. Ms. Serfass was on her first assignment with MSF, working as a logistician.

Interview with Philippe Guérin, Epicentre’s Scientific Director

In March and April 2007, heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia, resulted in a large number of civilian casualties and thousands of people fleeing the capital. The following stories, gathered by MSF, come from people displaced from Mogadishu who arrived at MSF's hospital in South Galcayo in May.

Paris, May 22, 2007 — A few days after Doctor Bernard Kouchner's appointment as France's minister of foreign affairs, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) notes a potential confusion between his new responsibilities and the role he has played in humanitarian organizations such as MSF. The mixing of politics and humanitarian action is fundamentally prejudicial to our activities and to the deployment of impartial and independent assistance on the field. In such contexts as conflicts, it may be particularly dangerous.

New York, September 26, 2006 — After more than two years since five staff members of the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were murdered in Afghanistan, no one has been convicted and the prime suspect in the crime has just been released before completion of the judicial process.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply shocked and outraged by the announcement of the killing of 17 members of Action Contra la Faim/Action Against Hunger in Sri Lanka. MSF is concerned about the turn this conflict is taking. Since hostilities resumed, the level of violence directed at civilian populations and humanitarian aid workers has increased. Gabriel Trujillo and Denis Lemasson, MSF program officers for Sri Lanka, react to the news.

The ceasefire between Nepal's royal government and the Maoist rebels still holds, but for how long? Despite a return to calm and the hope of a lasting peace, the Nepalese people still have only limited access to medical care.

Geneva, 19 May 2006 — As health ministers meet in Geneva at the World Health Assembly (WHA) next week, the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on governments to overhaul the way medical research and development (R&D) is prioritized and financed, and support a resolution proposed by Kenya and Brazil for a "global framework on essential health R&D." Despite gathering increasing support from many governments, this resolution has faced consistent obstruction on the part of the World Health Organization (WHO) Secretariat.

By Nicolas De Torrenté, Executive Director of MSF-USA

Bujumbura, 13 June 2005 – Medical staff from the international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have been denied access to Songore, a transit camp for some 7,000 Rwandese that fled to Burundi earlier in May. The MSF clinic inside the camp is now guarded by Burundese military and medical staff cannot enter the premises, depriving the remaining population from medical care. Before being denied access, MSF was conducting more than 100 medical consultations a day in Songore.

Geneva, 25 February 2005 - Ongoing insecurity on roads and around main concentrations of displaced populations remain the main obstacle to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Ituri district in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On February 24, 2005, almost two weeks after it started delivering aid to affected people in the region, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has had to temporarily suspend its activities in Iga-Barrière and Tché due to intense movements of armed groups in the conflict-affected area.

January 27, 2005 - The World Health Organization released its "3 by 5" progress report on January 26, 2005 at the Davos World Economic Forum congratulating itself on progress made in the drive to fight the HIV pandemic. But only 700,000, or 12%, of the nearly six million people in need of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in developing countries have access to it today. Looking at these figures Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who provides ARV treatment to more than 25,000 patients in 27 countries, comes to the exact opposite conclusion.

By Nicolas de Torrente, Executive Director MSF-USA

Dr. Rowan Gillies
President, MSF International Council
Geneva

Kabul, 28 July 2004 - With a deep feeling of sadness and anger, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announces today the closure of all medical programs in Afghanistan. MSF is taking this decision in the aftermath of the killing of five MSF aid workers in a deliberate attack on June 2, 2004, when a clearly marked MSF vehicle was ambushed in the northwestern province of Badghis. Five of our colleagues were mercilessly shot in the attack. This targeted killing of five of its aid workers is unprecedented in the history of MSF, which has been delivering medical humanitarian assistance in some of the most violent conflicts around the world over the last 30 years.

Kabul, June 13, 2004 - Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) strongly rejects allegations that the organization works for the interests of the US or any other governments, as was quoted in BBC and AFP reports. Such allegations are without foundation and show a complete disregard for MSF's medical work on behalf of people in need in Afghanistan over the last 25 years. They further jeopardize the possibilities to provide humanitarian assistance to the population.

Kabul/Amsterdam, June 3, 2004 - The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) deeply mourns the loss of five of its aid workers, who were killed in a brutal attack in Afghanistan yesterday. All five were committed to bringing humanitarian assistance to people in distress.

By Nicolas De Torrenté, Executive Director of MSF-USA

By Nicolas De Torrenté, Executive Director of MSF-USA

By Nicolas De Torrenté, Executive Director of MSF-USA

Bearing witness to injustice and abuse has been a fundamental component of the mission of MSF's since the organization's founding in 1971. But how do we decide when and how to raise our voices?

by Joelle Tanguy and Fiona Terry