Stories From Patients & Staff

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. 

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.

In the MSF Children’s Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, critically ill children are treated year-round. Many suffer life-threatening complications of malaria—like Paul B. Morris Junior, who arrived unconscious. Paul’s mother Lydia and the team who treated him share his story. 

Last year, as COVID-19 lockdowns restricted movement in communities around the world, women in Nablus, Palestine, were suddenly trapped at home, with no escape. The only way we could reach them and continue our support was to pivot to tele-counselling—something new for our therapists and patients alike.  

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 Palestinian who has lived in Gaza for 20 years. He is currently the Project Coordinator for MSF, and here he recounts the extreme violence that is taking place in the blockaded enclave.

Since the presidential and legislative elections in December 2020, a wave of violence has swept over Central African Republic (CAR). It comes on top of decades of civil war that have already taken a heavy toll: today, more than half of people living in CAR rely on humanitarian aid.

For the intensive care team in Aden, southern Yemen, traumatic injuries are only one part of the story. Doctor Silvia Marchesi blogs about the dedication of a team striving to save lives in the midst of conflict.