Doctors Without Borders

In the coming months, Somalis will need all the essentials: food, water, shelter, and emergency medical care. Yet it has always been hard to provide assistance in Somalia, where conflict, violence, and lack of access for humanitarian organizations have been the norm since the overthrow of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991. Somalia’s fierce clan rivalries add another element of insecurity. Simple administrative procedures, such as hiring drivers or nurses or securing land for health care posts, require long, arduous negotiations that delay any response.

Jean-Clement Cabrol, M.D., MSF director of operations in Somalia, in The New England Journal of Medicine

The conflict that began two decades ago in Somalia continues, and its consequences are currently exacerbated by drought—one of the worst on record in the country. Thousands of people have been forced to flee Somalia, and are seeking humanitarian aid in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. A measles epidemic is spreading. The lack of infrastructure and services is worsening the population’s vulnerability. In recent weeks, civilians have endured new military offensives launched in southern Somalia and in the capital Mogadishu.

It is in this context that Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has, in less than six months, provided intensive medical care to more than 10,000 severely malnourished children who were brought to medical facilities. MSF has projects in northern Kenya, including in Dadaab; in eastern Ethiopia, in refugee camps in Malkadida, Kobe, Bokolmayo, Hilleweyn, Dolo Ado; and across much of south-central Somalia itself, in Marere, Beletwayne, Dinsor, Daynile, Mogadishu, Jowhar, Guriel, and Galcayo. MSF has also enrolled a total of 54,000 severely malnourished children in outpatient feeding programs in more than 30 locations in these three countries.

At the same time, MSF teams have been battling the deadly combination of measles and acute malnutrition, which affects children in particular. Read more

Photo: Somalia 2011 © Yann Libessart/MSF

Refugee camps in Ethiopia are currently home to roughly 130,000 refugees from Somalia, the majority of whom have fled an ongoing food crisis and conflict. In recent weeks the number of people crossing the border into Ethiopia has increased to approximately 300 per day, up from 90 per day in September and October.

“At the moment, the capacity to receive more people and provide the necessary food, nutritional care, medical care, drinking water, sanitation and more, is grossly insufficient,” said Wojciech Asztabski, MSF project coordinator in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia. Read more

Photo: Ethiopia 2011 © Jenny Vaughn

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Fighting a Deadly Measles Outbreak Amid Insecurity in Somalia

Measles have hit the displaced population in and around Mogadishu especially hard. MSF teams are working to try to contain the disease despite significant challenges.

Dozens Treated After Bombardment of Displaced Persons Camp in South Somalia

Dozens of people wounded in an aerial bombardment that hit a displaced persons camp in southern Somalia on Sunday were being treated by MSF. The camp, in the town of Jilib, was hit around 1:30 p.m. Sunday. The wounded were treated in the town of in Marere, in Lower Juba Region, where MSF provides medical assistance.

As of late Sunday afternoon, at least three people were reported dead and 52 injured, mostly women and children. MSF is transporting the wounded to the hospital in Marere for stabilization and treatment, and may have to refer some patients to other facilities due to limited surgical capacity at the hospital.

Somali refugees stand outside a reception center in Dagahaley camp, Dadaab, Kenya. Since the kidnapping of two MSF employees on Oct. 13, MSF has continued to treat severely malnourished children and others in the Dagahaley camp hospital. Teams plan to reopen four health posts inside the camp and to restart other medical activities in the coming days. Read more

Photo: Kenya 2011 © Michael Goldfarb/MSF

Somalia: The Challenges of Bringing Medical Aid

In Mogadishu, about half of the more than one million inhabitants are displaced persons. The camps are overcrowded. Amidst insecurity and a growing health crisis, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is scaling up its medical response.

Somalia

“We’re currently treating the largest number of patients at the hospital since I’ve been working here, and space is at a premium. We are over capacity and are constantly working out ways of keeping malnourished patients apart from those suffering from TB or measles. Putting them together is simply not an option.”

- Dr. Faiza Adan Abdirahman, medical doctor in charge of the pediatric department at Istarlin hospital in Galgaduud in Somalia

Read more about what Dr. Abdirahman is doing or hear from our other voices in the field.

Photo: Somalia 2011 © Sven Torfinn

After heavy fighting erupted on October 20 in Daynille, on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to suspend its measles vaccination campaign in the area. The campaign had been scheduled to last three weeks and to reach 35,000 children. Measles is currently wreaking havoc in Somalia, and MSF has vaccinated more than 60,000 people for measles over the past two months. Read more

Photo: Somalia 2011 © Feisal Omar

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Somalia: The Challenges of Providing Humanitarian Aid

MSF teams are running 13 medical-nutritional programs throughout south and central Somalia, but the intricacies of clan rivalries, the absence of an effective government, and general insecurity make it very difficult to reach the level of assistance that is needed.

Somalia

“There are millions of children suffering from malnutrition today–out of view from journalists and TV cameras. Why should they have to wait to be caught up in the middle of a war or a food crisis in order to receive the kinds of high-value foods that will help them grow healthy and strong and reach their potential?”

- Dr. Susan Shepherd, MSF Nutrition Advisor