War and conflict: Counter terrorism “adds salt to the wound” in providing medical care in conflict

October 18, 2021

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....

Adding salt to the wound: Counter-terrorism and healthcare

October 18, 2021

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...

Afghanistan: Amid uncertainty, hospitals are still full in the country

August 28, 2021

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...

Yemen: Seeking healthcare in Taiz, a city split by a frontline

August 24, 2021

“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...

Afghanistan: Medical needs urgent as ever in Afghanistan after Taliban takeover

August 20, 2021

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...

South Sudan: The long walk for new life

August 3, 2021

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...

MSF ambulance service in South-West Cameroon: an essential lifeline in a region beset by violence

July 30, 2021

“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...

Ongoing violence against detained migrants forces MSF to suspend Tripoli detention centre activities

June 24, 2021

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...

People in northwest seek healthcare as MSF denied providing medical services

June 23, 2021

While thousands of people struggle to access vital healthcare in the restive North-West region of Cameroon, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been denied the resumption of our healthcare services in the region, six months after a forced suspension by Cameroonian authorities....

Violence in Haiti’s capital is putting medical activities in jeopardy

June 17, 2021

A spike in violence in Haiti's capital is putting medical activities in jeopardy, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today, warning that medical care cannot be sustained while armed clashes and robberies affect health facilities, vehicles, patients and staff.In the first week of...

Sudan: MSF uses camels and donkeys to reach remote mountain villages in Darfur

June 1, 2021

“The situation here was very difficult: the community in Dilli village had no access to healthcare for several years” says Mohamed Abdallah Juma, a community leader from Dilli, located in the mountainous Jebel Marra area of Sudan’s Darfur region. A rocky journey...

Palestine: “Night and day, what we are living through is terrifying”

May 20, 2021

The fighting between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups, principally Hamas, broke out once again after weeks of tensions in occupied East Jerusalem, which has been illegally annexed by Israel. Aymen Al-Djaroucha is a Palestinian who has lived in Gaza...