A Month in Focus – February 2017
Nigeria – Rann camp in northern Nigeria bombed in airstrike
Yemen – Providing medical care amid bombs
Syria - MSF calls on technology to establish the facts behind hospital bombings
Serbia - Refugees trapped in Belgrade in 20°C below
Kenya- Sexual violence
Cambodia - Hepatitis C
United States: “Global gag order will lead to more deaths”
NIGERIA
On January 17, 2017 an airstrike on a displaced persons camp in Borno State left at
least 90 people dead and over 150 wounded.
This region of northeast Nigeria is victim to the conflict opposing the Nigerian army and
Boko Haram. Many of the state’s inhabitants live in camps.
Mohammad Musoke, MSF medical coordinator (in English)
It attacked Rann town itself, a place with mostly IDPs, displaced people, and the host
community, an estimated population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people living around
Rann. When the attack happened, they were able to stabilize several of the cases. It was
difficult to arrange evacuation immediately, so the next day, myself and a colleague went
with a UN helicopter and started the medical evacuations, the majority were children un-
der twelve years old
The airstrike was carried out by the Nigerian army targeting Boko Haram positions. The air-
force has declared it a mistake on their part and has launched an investigation.
In 8 years, the conflict opposing the army and Boko Haram Islamists has displaced within
their own country almost 3 million people.
Kaltume Jacob and her ten children live in a camp in Maiduguri.
Kaltumé Jacob (woman, local language)
“Boko Haram entered our town early one morning. First the men fled and then the women
and children.
We walked to Maiduguri. It took us two days. Before Boko Haram came, my husband had a
job and I sold peanuts.
Life’s hard here. Aside from organisations like yours that help us, we don’t know where
or how we can get food.”
Angélique Muller, MSF project coordinator (in French)
“We’re in an area called Mouna, which has several camps grouped together. They’re huge
— like Mouna Garage, where 24,000 people live.
In summer 2016, MSF began organising distributions, mainly of food. Back then there were
few organisations on hand to provide desperately needed food to all the displaced.
There are more organisations here now, so the situation is less critical, but it’s still a
concern. And these displaced people are often confined in enclosed spaces under military
protection, so they depend entirely on humanitarian aid.”
Over one million displaced people are living here. Even if the situation has improved, the
United Nations say 5 million people in northeast Nigeria still don’t have enough to eat and
450,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition.
EUP / MSF 1
YEMEN
Yemen has endured close to 2 years of very heavy fighting.
MSF is one of only a few international organisations working in besieged town Taiz.
Situated in southwest Yemen at an altitude of fourteen hundred metres, Taiz is the country’s third
largest town. Fighting has made it very difficult to get to Taiz making food and basic necessities —
when they’re available —very expensive. And with the fighting so close, people must take huge risks
to get medical treatment. MSF works on both sides of the frontline in Taiz, providing medical care in
emergency, trauma and maternity units.
Christopher McAleer, MSF logistician in Taiz (in English)
..If i am a mother who is pregnant and wants to go to the mother and child hospital to deliver a baby
there are a quite a lot of obstacles at her face. There are snipers in quite a lot of high buildings, which
fire pretty much indiscriminately if you are civilian they don’t care, if you are a soldier they don’t care,
they will shoot you regardless. There's also quite a lot of land of mines in the area. So if you manage
to find a vehicle to take you from your house to the mother child hospital that car may hit a land
mine. And also if