Posts tagged politics
Photo:Ain el-Helweh in Saida is the largest camp hosting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Lebanon 2013 © Aurelie Lachant/MSF.
From Damascus to Ain el-Helweh: Palestinians in Syria Flee to Lebanon
“I’m deeply sad inside, but I need to appear strong in front of my family,” says a man called Mahmood while sitting in the narrow room he now shares with his wife and six-year-old son in the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Saida, Lebanon. Until almost two months ago, he’d been living in another camp for Palestinians, this one in Damascus, but the conflict in Syria had made it impossible to stay.
“It’s very difficult,” he says. “Seven of my relatives were killed by the bombings and shootings in Syria. We saw their mutilated bodies. I buried them myself and buried my neighbors too. My son disappeared. One month later, my brother disappeared. I’m sure they got killed and this is causing me a lot of sadness.”
Photo: A transit camp near the Turkish border. Syria 2013 © Anna Surinyach/MSF
10,000 Syrians Seek Shelter Near Turkish Border
Several months ago, Hussein Alwawi was living in Aleppo with his family. But, he recalls, “A warplane attacked our neighborhood and lots of houses were destroyed, including ours. We were not at home at the time, but two families were killed.”
Five days later, he and his family set out towards Syria’s border with Turkey. They found an ad hoc settlement that now hosts some 10,000 displaced Syrians, more than double the number who’d been there at the beginning of the year. While it is officially known as a “transit camp,” it would be more accurate to call it a camp for internally displaced people, or IDPs.
Driven from their homes by the war, most of these IDPs now live in tents set up in a field formerly occupied by a customs office, though Alwawi and his family found sanctuary inside a mosque. In a quest to create some sense of normalcy, people have set up barbershops and foodstalls, even a school for the children.
Countries Must Fix Critical Access to Medicines Flaws in Trans-Pacific Trade Pact
Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a far-reaching trade agreement between 11 Pacific Rim countries—continue to be shrouded in secrecy, but leaked copies of the agreement reveal that the United States is demanding the most harmful package of intellectual property protections ever proposed for a trade agreement with developing countries.
These rules would make it extremely difficult for generic competitors to enter the market, keeping prices unaffordably high, with devastating public health consequences.
Follow us throughout the week as negotiations for the TPP restart in Lima, Peru, tomorrow.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Members of Congress to Protect Access to Lifesaving Medicins
Photo: MSF medical staff examines patient in surgical ward in Hangu Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital. MSF supports the Hangu THQ Hospital by running emergency room and providing surgical care. Pakistan 2012 © Haroon Khan/MSF
Pakistan: More than 110 Treated for Blast Wounds Ahead of Elections
Pakistan is experiencing an increase in violence related to the general and provincial elections taking place on May 11, in the country’s first democratic transition of power. MSF staff treated patients for blast injuries at facilities in Hangu and Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
“The escalation in violence has caused massive devastation over a short period of time,” said Jean Guy Vataux, MSF country representative in Pakistan. “This is exacerbating an already very difficult situation for the Pakistani people who continue to bear the brunt of these violent acts on every level.”
Noncombatants have been the primary victims of the recent violence, which follows several months of armed conflict in Pakistan that mainly injured members of the security forces and armed militants, according to Pakistani media reports.
FREE EVENT | Live Webcast Crisis Update on Syria
Join us Thursday, May 9, for a LIVE ONLINE panel discussion featuring three distinct on-the-ground perspectives on the crisis in Syria and on MSF’s various operations.
Featuring:
Stephen Cornish, Executive Director, MSF-Canada, who recently returned from a fact-finding assignment that took him to a number of MSF programs in and around Syria.
Deane Marchbein, MD, President of the Board of MSF-USA and MSF Anesthesiologist, who spent a month earlier this spring providing surgical care within Syria.
Michael Goldfarb, Media Relations Manager, MSF-USA, who recently documented living conditions and the humanitarian situation facing Syrian refugees in Lebanon and northern Iraq.
Photo: A little girl waits against the gates of the camp registration center in Domeez. Iraq 2013 © Pierre-Yves Bernard/MSF
The conflict in Syria remains extremely intense. Frontlines continue to shift. The medical system is in shambles. An estimated 6.8 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, but whole enclaves are cut off from assistance of any kind.
Despite the very real challenges of operating in the country, MSF is now running four hospitals inside Syria and is increasing mobile clinic activities to the extent possible. Simultaneously, the organization is actively seeking to open new projects where it is safe to do so.
And, it should be noted, MSF is using only private donations for its work in Syria in order to remain entirely independent of all political positioning around the crisis.
MSF is also working in the neighboring countries of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, where some 1.4 million Syrians have fled in search of sanctuary. These countries have been overwhelmed by the influx of refugees and returnees, and the humanitarian response has thus far been unable to meet their needs.
Photo: A young refugee in Domeez camp, where more than 55,000 people have settled. Iraq 2013 © Pierre-Yves Bernard/MSF
Providing Psychological Care in Syria: “Flashbacks, Nightmares, and Baby Clothes”
People have lost their identity. Older men cannot find their place in society and in the family. They have lost their job or stopped being a fighter. Maybe they have responsibility for a family but they have had to move house several times in quick succession.
I don’t have to find them; they come and ask for help, saying things like, “I’m starting to be violent towards my wife and children. Please help me, I cannot be like that.”
Psychologist Audrey Magis recently returned home after spending two months working with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Syria, where she set up and ran a mental health program in one of MSF’s projects in the north of the country. Magis, who had previously worked for MSF in Gaza, Libya, and in a camp for Syrian refugees, explains how the war has affected people and what MSF is doing to help.
Photo: The sign outside the health center in Pinga, where armed conflict has made provision of care difficult. DRC 2013 © MSF
DRC: Thousands Flee Violence in Pinga, North Kivu
Thousands of people have fled the town of Pinga in recent days amid a new wave of armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s North Kivu Province, making it very difficult to ensure that they receive essential medical care. "Civilians are routinely exposed to this violence—this is the eighth time Pinga has changed hands since 2012,“ said Jan Peter Stellema, MSF’s operations manager in Goma. "A number of patients had to be transferred for emergency surgery to Goma, among them a 70-year-old woman shot in the arm.”
Syrian Refugees in Need in Iraq
The high number of Syrians registering as refugees at the Domeez camp, near the city of Dohuk in the Kurdish region of Iraq, has overstretched the camp’s capacity. Domeez camp was established in April 2012 and was initially designed to host 1,000 families. The population in the camp has now risen above 35,000 people, however. Despite the efforts of the local authorities, the level of assistance is clearly insufficient, and aid workers are struggling to keep up with the needs of all the residents. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is providing thousands of medical consultations every day, has supplied families with water and hygiene kits, and is planning a measles vaccination campaign.
This is an agreement that wouldn’t just affect the economy and sustainability in these 11 countries, but has the potential to impact the economy and environment for literally half the world. We find it troubling that … U.S. negotiators still refuse to inform the American public what they have been proposing.
In an open letter to the U.S. Congress, 400 organizations demand greater transparency on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP consists of 11 countries that are pushing to enhance patent and data protections for pharmaceutical companies. Doing so would obstruct price-lowering generic competition for medicines, and turn back years of fighting for universal access to medicines.
Learn more about the TPP and what it means for the international community.
CLICK to explore this interactive image: A guide to Syria two years after the conflict began
After two years of extremely violent conflict, the humanitarian situation in Syria is now catastrophic. View and share our interactive image to hear from our patients, see videos and photos and to meet MSF staff.
Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Living in Fear and Uncertainty
While Lebanon has absorbed tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Syria in recent months, many people are living in overcrowded conditions, suffering psychological distress, are fearful for their safety, and are unable to afford medical care, said the international medical humanitarian organization MSF in a report released today.
The MSF report, Fleeing the violence in Syria: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon, details the living conditions and health of the refugees and the major challenges facing them, including access to housing, food, water, sanitation, health care, and security. Most refugees are settling in economically disadvantaged regions of Lebanon, placing an additional burden on already overstretched resources. Gaps are appearing in refugees’ access to medical care, particularly hospital care and treatment for chronic diseases.
Photo: An MSF family doctor examines a young Syrian patient.
Lebanon 2012 © Nagham Awada/MSF
It’s a kind of medical utilitarianism: the patients’ needs come before everything. And people appreciate it: at a checkpoint, a man always gave us bananas because we saved his leg. They show us their babies in the street, and they remind us that the birth was difficult but that they’re still there.
Anna Halford, returning from a four-month mission as a project coordinator in DRC, reflects on the work MSF does to help people enduring daily violence.
Despite a volatile security situation, MSF continues to provide free health care in four reference hospitals, 12 health centers, and four health posts in North Kivu, as well as in four reference hospitals, 19 health centers, and five health posts in the province of South Kivu. There are also a number of cholera treatment centers (CTCs), mobile clinics, and emergency response activities.
At the project in Masisi, MSF performed 105,681 medical consultations in 2011. In the Masisi hospital, 7,226 inpatients were admitted for hospital care and 3,947 women gave birth for free.
Then, injured people started coming from everywhere. We had to come up with other ways of accommodating people, even if it meant putting beds on the terrace. Sometimes the wounded didn’t arrive during the day because of fighting, because the roads were blocked, or because traveling to the hospital was risky. Sometimes they came at night or at dawn.
MSF has been working on the ground in Syria for the past two months, trying to provide humanitarian assistance to people affected by the conflict. With the help of a group of Syrian doctors, in six days a team was able to transform an empty house into an emergency hospital where wounded people could be operated on and hospitalized.
As South Sudan marks the first anniversary of its independence on July 9, MSF teams are struggling to save lives in one of the most complicated and challenging refugee crises in its history. Having arrived with stories of violence, some 100,000 Sudanese refugees, many of them ill, have sought sanctuary in camps in Upper Nile State with inadequate resources and harsh living conditions.
Here, we take a look at the year that led up to this emergency.
Photo: South Sudan © Shannon Jensen
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