Posted on 30 December, 2011
MSF Shocked And Deeply Saddened By The Killing Of Two Staff Members In Mogadishu, Somalia
It is with great sadness that the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) confirms that two of its staff members were killed Thursday morning as a result of a shooting at the MSF compound in Mogadishu, Somalia.
While one of the aid workers died during the shooting, the other was transferred to a hospital and died following surgery Thursday evening. The victims are Belgian and Indonesian nationals.
The exact circumstances of the shooting are not yet clear. MSF’s immediate priority is to take care of those most affected by this tragedy, in particular the families and colleagues of the victims.
MSF will be relocating some staff from Somalia for security reasons but remains committed to continuing its humanitarian work in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia.
Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011
1. Getting Ahead of the Wave of New HIV Infections to Turn the Tide on AIDS
Three decades into the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and after 30 million deaths, landmark scientific findings this year show that providing people with HIV treatment early not only saves their lives but can reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to others by 96 percent—in effect demonstrating that early treatment of HIV is also prevention.
The question now is therefore how to make expansion of treatment both feasible and affordable—a challenge MSF has been grappling with in its projects since beginning to treat HIV in developing countries more than ten years ago.
MSF has learned, through experience, how care can reach more people in resource-limited settings—for example by decentralizing treatment from central hospitals to health centers and to community health posts, so it is available closer to where people live; and by shifting medical tasks from doctors to nurses, and in turn to community health workers, to overcome human resource shortages.
Ensuring treatment is affordable is equally critical—competition among generic producers is what has brought prices for HIV medicines down by more than 99 percent over the last decade. But more must be done to rein in drug prices, particularly for newer medicines.
Photo: Kenya 2011 © Sven Torfinn
Right now, our teams are conducting lifesaving trauma surgery in conflict-torn countries like Afghanistan. We are providing urgent obstetric care that has saved the lives of thousands of mothers and their babies in Pakistan. And we are fighting deadly outbreaks of cholera and measles in places like Haiti and Democratic Republic of Congo.
All around the world, every surgical procedure, every vaccine, every gallon of clean drinking water or meal that we provide comes from our donors. As we prepare for the new year and the challenges it will bring, we need your commitment to help more than ever.
Please make a tax-deductible gift to Doctors Without Borders by December 31.
From the conflict in South Sudan, to the ongoing cholera outbreak in Haiti, to civil war in Libya, 2011 was a year marked by crisis. But through it all, our donors were unflinching in their support for the victims of violence, drought, epidemics and other medical humanitarian emergencies.
Thank you for your support.