start of the country’s civil war. The same air strike killed
several French peacekeepers and was followed by retaliatory Throughout the fighting, MSF has continued to support the
attacks by the French military, which precipitated riots and 160-bed main hospital in Bouaké. In addition to running
mob violence in the capital, Abdijan. pediatric, maternity, and other wards, medical teams have
run two 24-hour operating rooms in the hospital. In Korohgo,
MSF donated medical and surgical equipment, including an MSF medical team operated two health centers and a
antibiotics, analgesics, sterile bandages, and gloves, to three maternity department, with 250 deliveries per month, until
hospitals in Abidjan to assist the staff in providing emergency December 2004.
medical care for those wounded during the week of violence.
In addition, MSF airlifted eight tons of emergency relief Medical teams also performed surgery, provided health care,
materials to the Ivory Coast. Some international volunteers and ran a therapeutic feeding center in Man Hospital in
were evacuated when mobs began targeting foreigners. western Ivory Coast. In Danané, an MSF-supported hospital
treated approximately 70 patients each day. An MSF medical
Prior to the recent violence, MSF’s aid work in Abdijan had team continues to provide consultations and emergency care
focused on providing medical assistance to the prisoners in at Bin Houyé Hospital, which is on the country’s western border
the city’s main prison, the Maison d’Arrêt et de Correction with Liberia. In Guiglo, in the south, MSF assists vulnerable
d’Abidjan. Recently, MSF teams provided medical assistance and internally displaced people at an outpatient clinic, and
in the aftermath of a riot in the prison that resulted in more attends to malnourished children in a feeding center.
than 45 injuries and at least 10 deaths.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AIDING CIVILIANS CAUGHT IN IVORY COAST VIOLENCE 2
UNENDING SUFFERING IN NORTHERN UGANDA 3
FIGHTING MEASLES IN DARFUR 4-5
THE HIDDEN SCARS OF WAR: PROVIDING MENTAL
HEALTH CARE IN TIMES OF CONFLICT 6-7
ON THE FRONTLINES OF HIV/AIDS TREATMENT 8-9
RESPONDING TO EMERGENCIES IN CONGO 10-11
NEWS&EVENTS 12
MSF STOPS ACTIVITIES IN IRAQ 13
FIELD UPDATES 14-15 MSF IN IVORY COAST
SNAPSHOTS 16 PRESENT SINCE 1991
INTERNATIONAL STAFF: 60
COVER PHOTO: MSF mobile clinic in Lira, Uganda. 2004 © Francesco Zizola NATIONAL STAFF: 850
Unending Suffering in outside the northern Ugandan town of Lira. 2004 © Francesco Zizola
“The extent of suffering is overwhelming, and the situation In Pader District, MSF runs water-and-sanitation and medical
remains critical,” said Monica de Castellarnau, MSF head of activities as well as a mobile clinic that visits a camp outside
mission in Uganda. “Not only do people live under constant the main town. A little farther north, MSF medical teams
threat, they lack basic resources and safe access to water, recently found tens of thousands of people living in squalid
food, and health care. We are doing what we can, but more conditions with little access to health care.
assistance is needed immediately.”
MSF runs a night shelter for the nearly 4,000 children who
seek a safe place to sleep each night on the grounds of Lacor
Traumatized People Hospital in the town of Gulu. The children fear abduction
A mental health survey in Pader revealed that almost all of and forced conscription by the Lord’s Resistance Army, the
the residents surveyed had been exposed to severe traumatic rebel group that has been fighting the Ugandan government
events since 2002. for more than a decade.
A vaccinator fills syringes with the appropriate Children line up to be vaccinated at one of the sites. Some come alone, and others are accompanied
amount of vaccine so that many children can by a parent or older sibling.
be immunized quickly.
Each child receives an immunization card to show that he or she has been vaccinated against measles. MSF staff tally the numbers of children
being vaccinated, and each child’s sex and age, to calculate the success of the vaccination campaign.
Two MSF national staff members operate a bicycle-ambulance service to transport an HIV/AIDS patient to the MSF clinic in
Malawi’s Thyolo province. A relative accompanies the patient to the clinic. MSF provides ARVs to more than 4,000 people —
more than 90 percent of the people receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS in Malawi. 2004 © Gael Turine
Esther, a five-year-old girl, is examined at A young woman waits with her daughter to receive ARV treatment at an MSF clinic in Mozambique. MSF
the MSF HIV/AIDS clinic in the Mathare provides ARVs to more than 2,800 people—more than 60 percent of those receiving HIV/AIDS treatment in
slums of Nairobi, Kenya. A neighbor who this country. “Before, only treatment for opportunistic diseases existed,” says Dominique Arthur Delley,
receives ARV treatment at the clinic has coordinator of MSF’s AIDS program. “We were trying to delay death. Now we are supporting a life project.”
brought Esther here. 2004 © Martin Beaulieu
2003 © David Levene
“HUMANITARIAN AID IS AN
APOLITICAL ACT”
On November 11, 2004, King Abdullah of Jordan presented
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) with
the King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize.
Afghanistan 2002 ©Sebastian Bolesch
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM AFGHANISTAN The $50,000 prize came into existence in 2000 and was award-
In October, the 92nd Street Y in New York City opened “Doctors ed by the King Hussein Foundation, named for the late king
Without Borders: Photographs from Afghanistan,” an exhibit of Jordan.
documenting MSF’s long history in this war-torn country.
Speakers at the opening reception included writer Sebastian “In these times of renewed fighting in Ivory Coast, with
Junger, MSF Operations Director Kenny Gluck, and photojournalist great needs in the Darfur region of Sudan, and in many
Didier Lefevre. Lefevre traveled with MSF medical teams in less-known contexts such as northern Uganda or Chechnya,
the 1980s as they undertook clandestine cross-border operations this recognition from civil society makes us realize our work
from Pakistan to reach Afghans stranded in areas that were is supported and not forgotten,” said MSF International
most affected by the Soviet occupation. President Rowan Gillies, MD.
FIELD UPDATES
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS/
MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES USA
TREATING AIDS IN KENYA Executive Director
In October, MSF and the Kenyan Ministry of Health Nicolas de Torrenté, Ph.D
opened a health center and HIV/AIDS-treatment Board of Directors & Officers
Darin Portnoy, MD, MPH
program for the people living in the Kibera slum of
President
Nairobi. Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa Martha Carey
with a population of more than 600,000. Those living Vice President
in Kibera will have access to outpatient consultations, David A. Shevlin, Esq.
mother-and-child health care, treatment for victims Secretary
Jean-Hervé Bradol, MD
of sexual violence, and comprehensive HIV/AIDS William Conk
treatment. “Disease is rife, with the biggest killer Roshan Kumarasamy
in the slum being HIV/AIDS-related diseases,” says Bruce Mahin
MSF head of mission Christine Jamet. MSF has been Christine Nadori, RN
John E. Plum
working in Kibera since 1997. Currently, 150 people
Treasurer
living with HIV/AIDS are receiving antiretroviral Myles Spar, MD, MPH
treatment through MSF. MSF runs similar programs Board of Advisors
in other areas of Nairobi, as well as in Busia and Richard Rockefeller, MD
Homa Bay. Chairman of the Board
Robert Bookman
Chairman, West Coast Council
Creative Artists Agency
Donald Mark Berwick, MD, MPP
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Victoria B. Bjorklund, Esq., Ph.D
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
A. Bruce Brackenridge
J.P. Morgan & Co., Inc. (Ret.)
Marek T. Fludzinski, Ph.D
Thales Fund Management, LLC
Peter Grose
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
Jean Karoubi
The LongChamp Group
Susan Liautaud
James Ottaway, Jr.
Dow Jones & Co. (Ret.)
Ottaway Newspapers, Inc.
Kevin Patrick Ryan
DoubleClick, Inc.
Garrick Utley
Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute, SUNY
AID TO SUDANESE REFUGEES IN CHAD Robert W. van Zwieten
Lehman Brothers, Inc.
MSF continues to work near the Chad-Sudan border,
Marsha Williams
assisting some 200,000 refugees who have fled Blue Wolf Productions
violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan. More New York Office
than 1.5 million Sudanese have been displaced in 333 Seventh Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001-5004
Darfur since fighting broke out there in 2003. In
Tel: 212-679-6800
September, MSF medical teams provided con- Fax: 212-679-7016
sultations to nearly 5,600 refugees living in two main Email: doctors@newyork.msf.org
camps, Iridimi and Toulum. Consultations increased Web: www.doctorswithoutborders.org
to more than 6,800 people in October. The nutritional West Coast Office
2525 Main Street, Suite 110
situation is improving: in the MSF therapeutic
Santa Monica, CA 90405
feeding center for severely malnourished children Tel: 310-399-0049
in one of the camps, the number of children en- Fax: 310-399-8177
rolled dropped by 75 percent from August to October. Alert is a quarterly newsletter sent to friends and
In the supplementary feeding program for the supporters of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans
moderately malnourished, the number of children Frontières. As a private, international, nonprofit
enrolled dropped from 2,042 in August, to 1,965 in organization, MSF delivers emergency medical relief
to victims of war and disaster, regardless of poli-
September, to 1,658 in October. However, the
tics, race, religion, or ethnicity.
refugees are still entirely dependent on food
Editor: Jason Cone
assistance, and any interruption in aid could result
Editorial Advisor: Kevin Phelan
in drastically increased malnutrition among the Design: CoDe, Jenny 8 del Corte Hirschfeld
people in the camps. MSF is also working in Iriba
Doctors Without Borders is recognized as a nonprofit,
Hospital, which acts as a referral hospital for the
charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3) of
most serious cases from Iridimi and Toulum. the Internal Revenue Code. All contributions are
2004 © Gael Turine tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
FIELD UPDATES
2004 © Patricia Rincon Mautner
Ana Milena, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, was “I think the MSF rehabilitation center is great
stabbed in the stomach and back by her ex-husband. because I was able to learn how to walk again,”
The attack left her paralyzed. Milena was brought says Milena. “The staff helped me to learn on a chair,
to the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans then on crutches. Now, I only need a stick to go up
Frontières (MSF) rehabilitation center in Cali, Colombia, stairs or cross the street.” Milena has also been
where she was one of more than 2,700 survivors of able to go back to work as a toymaker. “I see life in
urban violence who have received free, comprehensive a different way now—I love it more. I value myself
rehabilitative care since 1998. MSF recently handed more, and I enjoy each day as a gift.”
the project over to the local government.