Video report on life in Sa'ada, the most bombed governorate of Yemen. With almost a quarter of all recorded coalition air raids since March 2015, the MSF hospital that was bombed in 2015 and reopened in April 2018 had admitted more than 1,500 patients by the end of the year. Project Update - 20 Jun 2019

South Sudan

Life inside or outside a displacement camp

MSF patients and staff describe life in South Sudan’s Protection of Civilians sites, where relative safety comes at the expense of exposure to life-threatening diseases and undignified living conditions. Project Update - 20 Jun 2019

Most people in the shelters, where they wait to cross into the US, do not take to the streets due to the risk of imminent kidnapping. Migrants and refugees are exposed to risks of violence at the northern Mexican border.

Mexico

Mass arrests drive migrants underground and cut them off from medical care

MSF teams have witnessed an increase in mass arrests and raids on groups of migrants on Mexico’s southern border, with alarming consequences. Press Release - 19 Jun 2019

Adephine speaks in slow, hushed tones. She tugs at her mother, Elisabeth, sliding behind her as soon as the gathering of people at this remote Médecins Sans Frontières health clinic in Tanzania swells.
A refugee camp can limit people’s movement, but it can do little to dash the hopes and aspirations of a 12-year-old girl from breaking through its dim and bleak confines.
Adephine often lets her imagination fly outside the Nduta refugee camp, in north-western Tanzania, where she has been living since January 2017, when her mother fled violence in Burundi. In a place far away from the camp, she dreams of becoming a doctor one day. As she says this, she grows in confidence, and her eyes stare you straight in the face.
In the camp, she receives lessons in English, French, basic mathematics and science, but says, with a touch of gloom, “we often get punished in the school, and I don’t like it”.
It’s not only these daily chastening experiences that threaten to dampen the spirit of children like Adephine, but the grinding toil of living in a place where rationing is the norm can snuff out any lingering traces of ambition.

Adephine’s father, and her two siblings, only joined the family in the camp later, when registrations had stopped. “My husband is not registered, and so he cannot receive assistance”, says Adephine’s mother, Elisabeth. “We share the food we receive among us”.
A small patch of land around their modest two-room abode in the camp provides for a few green vegetables and beans.
“But this is not enough”, says Elisabeth.
Over 230,000 Burundians, spread across three camps in Tanzania, will remain dependent on much-needed humanitarian assistance until longer-term solutions are found. But, for now, they desperately need support. This little-spoken crisis continues to be dismally funded, revealing major gaps in the humanitarian response.

Limited food, poor living conditions and weak wastewater management are a recipe for disease outbreaks. The Nduta refugee camp, where MSF is the main healthcare provider, recently witnessed a peak in diarrhoea cases, but MSF teams were able to swiftly respond and staunch the spread of the disease.

Back in the health clinic, Adephine is playing with a strip of capsule. “When we are sick, we can have treatment”, says her mother, Elisabeth. But she wishes they had more variety in the food they received in the camp.

Sitting together, Adephine, her younger sister, Rachel, and Elisabeth appear composed. What the future holds for them remains shrouded in uncertainty. But with those dreams that take one far away, there is always that smallest of relief to take flight, even briefly, and escape the biting reality of the camp.

Refugees, IDPs and people on the move

Refugees around the world: Stories of survival

For World Refugee Day, we take a look at the stories of survival of people forced to flee from home. There are now 70.8 million people displaced around the world. MSF teams provide care to refugees in a number of countries. Voices from the Field - 19 Jun 2019

After an extremely busy night on the Central Mediterranean, starting late on June 9 and into the early hours of June 10, the Aquarius has 630 people on board from six different operations. The rescue of two rubber boats turned critical when one boat broke apart in the darkness, leaving over 40 people in the water. After rescuing 230 people from these boats, the Aquarius then took 400 more people on board at the request of the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (IMRCC), who had been rescued by Italian navy and coastguard ships on 9 June.

Over the next days, the Aquarius was embroiled in a political stand-off at sea over the fate of the people rescued in the Mediterranean. Although the rescue and transfers of the 630 people were initiated and coordinated by IMRCC, the Italian authorities denied Aquarius authorisation to bring them ashore in the closest port of safety in Italy. Malta, which had the nearest safe port, also refused to allow the Aquarius to disembark, citing Italy’s coordination role and responsibility. Eventually, on 11 June, the Spanish government intervened and offered to let the Aquarius disembark in Valencia, 1,300 kilometres away. Despite MSF’s concerns about the humanitarian and medical impact of the sea journey to Valencia, the Italian authorities instructed Aquarius on 12 June to transfer 524 people back to Italian ships and embark with the remaining 106 rescued on a four-day journey to Spain. On June 17, one week after they had been rescued, all 630 people were disembarked in Valencia, Spain.

Mediterranean migration

European policies continue to claim lives on the Mediterranean Sea

A year on from Italy's decision to close its ports to search and rescue in the Mediterranean, people still attempt the crossing, with thousands dying, stranded at sea or illegally returned to Libya, exposing heartless European migration policies. Press Release - 12 Jun 2019

A mother looks after her child hospitalized at the MSF measles treatment center in Mayi-Munene, Kamwesha (Kasai).

Democratic Republic of Congo

Massive mobilisation urgently needed to curb fast-spreading measles outbreak

The Democratic Republic of Congo is currently tackling a measles outbreak which is likely to be the country's deadliest since 2012. MSF teams are responding, but more resources are urgently needed from national and international partners to curb the spread of the contagious disease. Press Release - 11 Jun 2019

Personnel of the Ministry of Health (Minsal) was able, thanks to the presence of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), to cross the invisible borders imposed by the situation of violence that hinders access to health in some neighborhoods in the capital.

El Salvador

Behind the wheel – driving ambulances in El Salvador’s red zones

In the "red zones" of El Salvador - areas that are controlled by gangs and marked by violence - access to medical care is not easy for residents. So MSF goes to them with an ambulance driven by trained nurses. Voices from the Field - 7 Jun 2019

MSF Medical Team crossing Kyan Abad rope bridge to deploy a mobile clinic in Paran Parvis village on the ride side of Kashkan River.

Iran

Providing health care to vulnerable people in Lorestan after floods in Iran

Two months since violent flash floods stormed areas along the Kashkan River, in Lorestan province, west Iran, life is starting to return to normal. In Pol-e Dokhtar town, most of the sludge and rubble have been cleaned out while reconstruction of a few houses and shops are beginning in this devastated area. Project Update - 6 Jun 2019

Yemen

A day treating wounded in Yemen's Al Salakhana hospital

VIDEO report: MSF teams started working in Al Salakhanah hospital, in the northeast of the port city of Hodeidah, Yemen, in September 2018 to provide care to the injured, including war-wounded civilians. Project Update - 30 May 2019

A surgeon at MSF SICA Hospital in Bangui tries to extract a bullet deeply lodged in a patient's shoulder.

Un chirurgien de l'hôpital MSF SICA à Bangui tente d'extraire une balle profondément logée dans l'épaule d'un patient.

Central African Republic

“It felt like it was raining bullets” in attacks on villages that kill over 50

On Tuesday 21 May, dozens of civilians were killed when three villages in the Ouham-Pendé region were attacked by gunmen. One of the survivors, who was transferred to Bangui and treated by MSF, recalls the events. Voices from the Field - 24 May 2019

Four mothers posing in a corridor of the Hospital in Bili. All four of them are staying in the hospital with their child, that's suffering from a severe case of malaria. Since the beginning of the project in 2016, the pediatric ward already treated more than 4.000 cases of complicated/severe form of malaria.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Independent medical humanitarian assistance

We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff - most of them hired locally. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of independence and impartiality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organisation.

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Aerial bombardments in Sa'ada