Caught between the frontlines: the babushkas experiencing loss, mental trauma and an absence of medical care
December 4, 2022As the Russian army took control of towns and villages across Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in late February 2022, those unable or unwilling to leave their homes were mostly the elderly and people with disabilities. Caught up in the middle of...
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Data and patient accounts reveal “no mercy” for civilians in Ukraine war
June 22, 2022Medical data and accounts from patients evacuated on Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) medical referral train show that the war in Ukraine is being conducted with an outrageous lack of care to distinguish and protect civilians. Over 40 percent of the...
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“I don’t feel heartache, it’s deep in my soul” – The mental health needs in Ukraine
June 3, 2022“I feel fear in my soul. My fingers and hands begin to get cold,” says Vira, an elderly woman who fled the Donetsk region and is now seeking shelter in Ivano-Frankivsk, in the southwest of the country. “I’m worried about...
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Bombs over Mariupol, Ukraine: Each day is like losing your whole life
March 24, 2022Sasha, 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...
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Ukraine: Staff in major Kyiv hospital receive training for potential increase in casualties
March 18, 2022Staff 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...
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Ukraine: War in Ukraine has displaced me twice and I’m on the road again
March 16, 2022Aleksandr 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...
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Ukraine: Every day thousands of Ukrainians arrive in Slovakia – traumatised and exhausted
March 15, 2022More 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...
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Ukraine: Thousands of people flee bombings in south Ukraine and head west
March 12, 2022Thousands 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...
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Ukraine: “There’s an urgent humanitarian race against time in Ukraine”
March 11, 2022Anja 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...
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Ukraine: In Odessa, “everyone is preparing for the worst”
March 8, 2022Carla 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...
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Ukraine: Emergency medical supplies rushed to Kyiv by train from Ukraine warehouse
March 6, 2022Around 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...
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Ukraine: Civilians must be allowed safe passage out of dire conditions in Mariupol
March 5, 2022The 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...
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