“I was taken to solitary confinement while my daughters were locked in another cell. I knew nothing about them,” says Suha*, a 50-year-old woman who was detained in 2018 without charge and held for six years. “I didn’t care about the beatings I took, hoping that when the beating stopped, I would find out the fate of my daughters.” 

Suha*, like hundreds of prisoners and detainees, gained her freedom when chains were broken and the gates of prisons were opened upon the fall of the former Syrian government in Syria in December 2024. Many of them spent years in detention under very harsh conditions, deprived of proper food and sometimes medical care, and exposed to endless cycles of physical and psychological ill treatment, as reported to MSF medical and mental health teams. 

“My husband and I live with my in-laws; we come here because it’s free,” says Doha Ghazi, a 19-year-old mother from Al-Ubor, as she waits to vaccinate her child.

In response to community needs, Al-Ubor health center launched a child vaccination program in April 2025 in partnership with Nineveh Directorate of Health . Every Tuesday and Wednesday, between 10 to 40 children are vaccinated, many of whom missed their early doses due to long travel distances, financial constraints, or distrust in vaccine handling. In just under three months, 764 vaccines were administered, including 240 in June alone. The vaccines protect against tuberculosis, measles, smallpox, polio, and whooping cough.

“My older daughter was vaccinated here too,” explains Shaza Youssef, a young mother of two, while holding her 20-day-old baby, “That’s why I brought the new baby.”

About 100 kilometres from Tawila, cholera was reported in Golo, Central Darfur state, on 13 July. MSF opened a 73-bed cholera treatment centre in Golo hospital. This centre was quickly overwhelmed, with 137 patients arriving on 3 August alone. Five oral rehydration points were set up around Golo to manage mild cases and prevent deterioration, but our teams see that the outbreak is still spreading fast. In early August, cholera reached Zalingei and Rokero in Central Darfur state, and Sortony in North Darfur state.

Heavy rains are worsening the crisis by contaminating water and damaging sewage systems. Cases are continuing to rise in South Darfur state, as well, where MSF, in coordination with the Ministry of Health, has expanded the cholera treatment centre in Nyala to 80 beds. There, the response is waiting for vaccines and facing a severe shortage of water purification tablets.

Since 1 August, MSF had been leading a cholera emergency response at Zalingei hospital, treating 162 patients in just 16 days, in collaboration with the State Ministry of Health. Cholera has already claimed seven lives, and Zalingei hospital is the only facility equipped to treat severe cases in Central Darfur state. MSF teams also supported the State Ministry of Health with surveillance to contain the outbreak. Beyond cholera, the hospital provided over 1,500 gynaecological consultations, 1,400 pediatric consultations, and 80 surgeries, between May and July 2025. As the only referral hospital serving around 500,000 people, it is the sole facility managing complex cases in the area. MSF’s mobile clinic in Fogodiku locality and community engagement and health promotion activities has also been suspended, leaving thousands without essential care.

These are just the latest, and particularly shocking, examples of attacks against medical and humanitarian workers worldwide. We’ve also seen horrific attacks in Ukraine, in Haiti, in Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. Whether they directly target staff or hospitals from MSF, or from other organisations, we – humanitarians – feel attacked. We share the grief of all medical and humanitarian colleagues who work alongside us, acting with the same urgency to care for sick and injured people.

These recent assaults on humanitarian and medical workers are exceptionally grave – not only for their brutality and toll, but for the profound indifference that followed. Aside from statements by the United Nations and isolated calls from some states – like the UK’s request for investigations into attacks in Gaza, or France’s response after the strike on Old Fangak’s hospital – there is no shared global outrage. There is no strong political momentum, and certainly no concrete action against the perpetrators. Verbal condemnations ring hollow without real consequences.

It almost feels futile to ask the question: what is preventing this from happening again – even tomorrow?

All such attacks should be met with strong, unequivocal condemnation. We should expect emotion, mobilisation, and strong reaction. Independent investigations should be launched automatically to identify those responsible, and existing laws and international conventions applied – their enforcement should not be up for negotiation or compromise.

Justice should be delivered to the families and the colleagues of the victims, and concrete pressure applied to political stakeholders who tolerate, enable, or even actively encourage, such attacks. Nearly four years on from the brutal killing of our three colleagues in Tigray, Ethiopia, the Ethiopian authorities have failed to conduct a credible, transparent, impartial, or timely investigation.

After the war began in Syria, over 14 years ago, millions of people were displaced both inside and outside the country. Although the former Assad regime fell in December 2024, there are still approximately 7.2 million people displaced in Syria.