Abyei, Sudan: “They only have the clothes they were wearing when the fighting started”

June 2008

The fighting that erupted in Abyei on May 14 has forced nearly 50,000 people to flee. They are now scattered around the area with little access to food, shelter, or water.

Tawila, North Darfur: “Now it’s known as a place that was brutally destroyed”

June 2008

Chris Sauer, a fire chief in the Lake Tahoe area of California, has been on five assignments with MSF since 1998, most recently in Tawila in North Darfur. Sauer served as interim project coordinator from February to March 2008. Here, he describes his experience.

Three Weeks After Cyclone Enormous Needs Still Unmet in Myanmar

May 2008

With an international conference of donor governments meeting over the weekend in Yangon, Myanmar, MSF Emergency Coordinator Jean-Sebastien Matte describes the needs that remain more than three weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck the country.

 

Yangon, Myanmar: "People tell stories of spending the night of the cyclone hanging onto trees all night long"

May 2008

Souheil Reaiche, MSF head of mission in Yangon, Myanmar, describes the situation in the country following the devastating Cyclone Nargis.

Responding to influx of Congolese refugees in Kisoro, Uganda: MSF nurse Laura Cobey

February 2008

When fighting erupted between armed groups and government forces in the North Kivu province of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in August 2007, it forced an estimated 10,000 Congolese to flee for safety over the border into Uganda.  Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) helped set up a transit site in Nyakabanda, situated about 10 miles from the DRC border in Uganda’s Kisoro district. Nurse Laura Cobey arrived to be field coordinator for the MSF project in October, just as a renewed surge in fighting pushed another wave of Congolese to seek refuge in Nyakabanda. Cobey describes the quick opening of the site and conditions for the estimated 13,000 people who lived there until its December closing.

North Kivu, DRC: "I saw how desperate the population is..."

January 2008

In Masisi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) North Kivu province, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) supports a hospital and provides humanitarian aid to local and displaced populations. Between August and December 2007, Philippe Havet coordinated MSF emergency activities in this area, in the heart of the conflict zone where several armed groups clashed. On Philippe's return from Masisi, he reported on the situation in the region which has been the setting of new fighting for several months. He also explained the challenge for MSF of working in a situation as unstable as this one.

DRC: Cholera Epidemic Hits Mining City of Lubumbashi

January 2008

Since the start of 2008, 767 people suffering from cholera have required treatment in a cholera treatment center (CTC) supported by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) the city of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province and the economic center of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Eldoret, Kenya: "The machete wounds have caused near amputations"

January 2008

In early January, Dr. Gary Myers, a surgeon from Oklahoma, from dispatched to Eldoret, in western Kenya, to support the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team responding to post-election violence. He describes his experience working in the surgical department of Eldoret Hospital.

Yemen: Refugees Take Perilous Journey to Flee War and Poverty

December 2007

Every year, thousands of people risk their lives crossing the Gulf of Aden: Somalis fleeing the fighting in their country and Ethiopians leaving because they cannot find work back home, for political reasons, or because of the conflict in the Somali region. Conditions of the voyage are terrible and on almost every crossing people die. This year alone an estimated 28,000 people arrived at the along the coast of Yemen, with 651 confirmed dead and another 659 missing. The actual death toll is probably much higher.

Treating sexual violence in Haiti

October 2007

An interview with Olivia Gayraud, a French emergency nurse, who helped open the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) 56-bed emergency medical and surgical program at St. Joseph's Hospital in Port-au-Prince in October 2004. In March 2007, she became head of mission at the project, which now inlcudes a program to treat victims of sexual violence with medical and mental health care.