Stories From Patients & Staff

Sarah Gnanaseharam is an Australian nurse who shares her experiences working as Nursing Activity Manager in Al Hol camp, northeast Syria.

Fighting in the city of Kunduz in north-eastern Afghanistan ended on 8 August. During the clashes, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) transformed its office space into a temporary trauma unit to treat the people wounded. That unit is now closed and on 16 August all patients were transferred to the nearly-finished Kunduz Trauma Centre that MSF had been building since 2018.

After months of fighting on the outskirts of Herat in Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also known as the Taliban, took control of the city on August 12. MSF is running an inpatient therapeutic feeding centre (IFTC), a clinic for displaced people, and a COVID-19 treatment centre in Herat.

August 2021 marks four years since the 2017 campaign of targeted violence by the Myanmar military waged against the Rohingya in Rakhine State. The stateless Rohingya people have been subjected to discrimination and denied basic rights and adequate access to services, including healthcare. Approximately 900,000 refugees are now living in Bangladesh. 

Dr Salih M. Auwal is a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor and COVID-19 focal clinician working at Shinkafi clinic in Zamfara state, northwest Nigeria, where we provide care for malaria, sexual violence and other health needs.

Here, Dr Awaul explains why he and other health professionals in Nigeria urgently need global support to protect people from COVID-19, as they face the country’s third wave of infections.

Every year, thousands of people fleeing war, persecution and poverty at home attempt the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean. Since the beginning of 2021, nearly 1,000 people have been reported dead or missing on world’s deadliest sea border. 

To help save the lives of people trying to cross the central Mediterranean Sea, Médecins Sans Frontières has chartered its own vessel, the Geo Barents, to conduct search and rescue missions.

In the days since Haiti's 7.2 magnitude earthquake on 14 August, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have been conducting exploratory missions and providing critical aid to those most affected.

Xavier Kernizan is an orthopedic surgeon based in MSF's Tabarre hospital in Port-au-Prince, who has been working with an MSF surgical team in Jérémie providing emergency care to those injured by the earthquake. Here he discusses the situation on the ground.

María Hernández, Yohannes Halefom and Tedros Gebremariam were killed on 24 June in Tigray, Ethiopia. Their colleagues from Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) remember them.

Judy Forbes, based in Christchurch, New Zealand, has worked as an anaesthetist in humanitarian settings in over 40 countries. This includes 10 assignments with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in places like Palestine, Cameroon and Sri Lanka—and she’s not done yet.

On 10, 11 and 12 June, teams on board the MSF-chartered search and rescue vessel, GeoBarents, carried out seven consecutive rescues of people from unseaworthy boats in distress in the central Mediterranean Sea. In less than 48 hours, our teams safely brought on board 410 men, women and children, including one pregnant woman and 91 unaccompanied minors. Some of the survivors recounted their harrowing stories of survival in attempting to cross the deadliest migratory route in the world.