3-4 | A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team managed to reach Debaltseve on 21 February, three days after the rebels took the city in Eastern Ukraine. Olivier Antonin, MSF’s emergency coordinator, was part of the team that provided medical aid and evaluated the medical needs there. He describes what he saw in this devastated city. When we arrived in Debaltseve, we quickly saw that it had been hit hard. The bridge leading to the center of town had been damaged and we had to turn back. The town seemed deserted.
2-13 | The industrial city of Gorlovka in eastern Ukraine has been under constant shelling, its hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded, and medical supplies have run out, leaving doctors to stitch up patients with fishing line. MSF surgeon Dr Michael Roesch is supporting the Ukrainian surgical team in Hospital #2. I arrived in Gorlovka six days ago and went straight to the hospital. The main operating theatres up on the sixth floor are no longer functioning because they’re just too dangerous with all the shelling.
2-12 | Djamilou from Central African Republic (CAR) has been working as a logistician in Niger. Djamilou came to Paris between assignments in Africa for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). He told us her story. He spoke of the violence and the plight of his family scattered among three different countries after fleeing from Central Africa. His testimony illustrates only too well the suffering endured by our Central African teams. I grew up in Bocaranga in north Central Africa. Until not long ago, there were no problems between Christians and Muslims.
2-5 | Thousands of people fleeing violence in the contested border area between Sudan and South Sudan are in desperate need of food, water and medical care. MSF has launched an emergency intervention to assist them as they arrive, mostly empty-handed, in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state in South Sudan, where the humanitarian situation is already dire. According to local authorities, 1,542 households have arrived in Aweil North County in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state since October last year.
2-3 | As fighting in eastern Ukraine continues to escalate, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is urging all parties to the conflict to halt shelling of hospitals and ensure civilians can reach safe places.