Five Years Since Rohingya Killings, One Million People Remain in Dire Conditions

Five Years Since Rohingya Killings, One Million People Remain in Dire Conditions

Today marks five years since horrific events unfolded in Rakhine state, Myanmar. Thousands of Rohingya people were killed by the Myanmar military. MSF alone documented 6,700 violent deaths.

More than 700,000 people fled for their lives to Bangladesh. They joined others who had already sought refuge from previous cycles of violence and together now make up one million people stranded in Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh.

Below we share some testimonies from Rohingya people living in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, whose health, water, sanitation, and protection needs remain immense. At the same time, the roots cause of Rohingya suffering – statelessness – is no closer to being addressed.

Tayeba Begum, fled Myanmar in 2017 with her children.

“My twin girls, Nur Ankis and Nur Bahar, were only six-month-old babies when we escaped from our homeland in Myanmar. After the killings began, we couldn’t stay in Myanmar any longer – the military were brutally murdering Rohingya and burning their houses.

When I fled with my babies, we crossed jungles and muddy roads in the soaking rain to get to Bangladesh.  After reaching the border, people were resting wherever they could, but there was nowhere to shelter. We ate whatever we could find to survive. My daughters became weak and vomited whenever I tried to feed them. They suffered for a long time as it was difficult to find medicine when we arrived.

“I long for peace. If we can ever live peacefully again in Myanmar, we will return. But how can we return if our rights are not ensured? How can we go back if our children could be taken away and murdered?”

A few days after our arrival [to Cox’s Bazar], shelters were built for us out of cloth and bamboo. Now, we live here in the refugee camps. It has been five years of living in distress.

We depend on food assistance and worry about what to feed the children and if it’s enough. We worry about how to clothe them and how to educate them. 

I long for peace. If we can ever live peacefully again in Myanmar, we will return. Why wouldn’t we return if justice is served to us and we are given citizenship? Is it not our homeland also? But how can we return if our rights are not ensured? Where will we live, since our houses have been destroyed? How can we go back if our children could be taken away and murdered? 

You can keep us here or transfer us to another country, we will not refuse, but I would not go back to Myanmar without justice being served.”

Anwar, 15 years old, fled violence in Myanmar

“My name is Anwar. I am a student from Myanmar. We escaped our neighbourhood in Myanmar and now live in the Jamtoli refugee camp in Bangladesh. 

I remember when I ran away from Myanmar with my family. It was one afternoon, when the army attacked our neighbourhood and we had to run to a nearby area. When they torched our houses, we had to run further. We survived but many of relatives and neighbours were murdered.

We travelled a long way to seek safety. I remember it was almost 12 days of running and walking before we reached Bangladesh. It was dangerous: we walked unfamiliar roads, climbed hills and even crossed water. We saw a lot of dead bodies on the way.

“Our life in the camp is not easy. I would like to address young people like me around the world. Please use the opportunity you have and learn as much as you can. My fellow Rohingya refugees and I do not have such an opportunity.”

I was a student at school when we escaped, so when I came here my education was interrupted. I was a good student with high grades. I like learning, but now, I can’t study or get the books I need.

My dream was to become a doctor, to be useful to the community. Since my childhood, I have seen doctors helping people and doing their best. I understand now that the dream might never come true. Still, I feel happy when I go to classes and meet my friends. We try to be happy while studying and playing.

 

Our life in the camp is not easy. The incentive my father earns is not enough to support my family. And sometimes when I come back from school at night, I feel unsafe.

I would like to address young people like me around the world. Please use the opportunity you have and learn as much as you can. My fellow Rohingya refugees and I do not have such an opportunity.”

Mohamed Hussein, 65, fled Myanmar five years ago

“One morning [in 2017], we heard gunshots. It was a Thursday night that actual shots were fired from the military post close to our home. The next morning, we heard some Rohingya people had been killed.

We were terrified, as the military were arresting and killing people everywhere. Running for our lives, we arrived here to Bangladesh. We were fortunate that we made it here alive. Bangladesh is doing a lot for us and standing by us.

When we first arrived here, we were very hopeful. But now, we feel stuck. Life has become difficult. I feel anxious about our future because our children are not being educated properly. Whether they stay here or return to Myanmar, what will they do without education? We have many sleepless nights thinking about this.

“My heart longs for our repatriation to Myanmar. The world is made for everyone to live. Today, we have no country of our own despite being human. We are requesting the world to help us live as humans. My wish is to have rights, and peace.”

I receive medical care for my diabetes and high blood pressure at an MSF facility inside the camp, but treatment for my kidney disease is not available in the camp. I am old now and will die soon. I wonder if I will see my motherland before I die. My wish is to breathe my last breath in Myanmar. I am not sure if that wish will be fulfilled.

My heart longs for our repatriation to Myanmar, with the guarantee that our rights will be protected and that we will not be persecuted further. I am scared about the possibility of facing persecution again in Myanmar and since our families are there, we need to think of their safety.

We should be able to study, lead our lives and move around like any other citizen of Myanmar. We should be able to vote, participate in elections and raise our voices in Parliament.

Now that all our rights have been taken away, we are nothing but a walking corpse. The world is made for everyone to live. Today, we have no country of our own despite being human. 

I am saying to the world, we are just as human as you are. As we were born as humans, we wish to live a dignified life. We are requesting the world to help us live as humans. My wish is to have rights, and peace.”

Gaza: Caught in a Cycle of Destruction

Gaza: Caught in a Cycle of Destruction

Sakhar was asleep when a bomb hit his family home in Gaza City, and even then, he knew exactly what was happening. That was before he lost consciousness, before being transported to the hospital, before coming to and realizing that once again, he and his family had survived.

Sitting in an MSF Gaza clinic on 10 August, five days after the bombing and two days after a ceasefire was announced, he swipes through photos on his phone, sent by his neighbours. They show him and his brothers unconscious on the ground, faces covered in blood and cement dust. He marvels at the fact that here they are, still alive.

Not only did Sakhar, who is thirty years-old and a father of four, survive this August 2022 bombing, he also survived another bombing during the 2014 war in Gaza, in which he needed skin grafts. Today, his back is covered in fresh, open cuts, and he has come to the clinic, with his two younger brothers, both of whom sustained severe fractures and abrasions, to have their dressings changed.

Their family are among the approximately 350 Gazans who sustained severe injuries during this round of escalation, joining the several thousand others who have been injured or disabled by one of the five wars on Gaza that have taken place in a 15-year span of time. This time around, according to the United Nations, 49 Gazans were killed, including 17 children.

Sakhar’s brothers, who are 22 and 13 recall how their lives have been shaped by their close proximity to the trauma of war despite repeatedly moving neighbourhoods to escape the destruction.

Mahmoud, who is 22, says “During the 2008 war, I was in 4th grade, I remember as children we used to hear the explosions and see the (dead bodies).”

“In 2012, again we saw many injured and (dead people), and I lost many of my friends at the time. Then in (the 2014 war) our house was damaged.”

Over the years, he reflects, “We saw bad and horrible sights, but not like this one.”

For Gazans like Sakhar and his brothers, the cycle of repeated wars has led to compounded physical and mental health traumas. For healthcare workers too, the scenes in the emergency rooms have become all too familiar.

Dr. Osama Tawfiq Hamad, an anaesthesiologist was working on Friday night when the bombs began to hit Gaza. As a doctor for MSF since 2019, he has provided care for patients through two wars. He describes how the emergency room at Al-Awda hospital filled up within minutes, receiving over 15 patients including six children. He treated one young child who had been hit with shrapnel to the skull, and another with a hematoma in the chest, both requiring urgent surgery.

“In Gaza, (in the past 15 years) we’ve had five wars, and every time there’s an airstrike we have a huge amount of (injured people) that all come to the hospital at one time. You could have 50 or more patients at a time. In these moments, we have very bad emotions, anger and mixed emotions, but you must be strong to deal with the cases.”

Dr. Osama points to the fact that over time, for those patients that survive, returning to the hospital for follow-up surgeries, physiotherapy, and support following the mental and physical injuries of war becomes part of their daily lives.

His colleague Shadi Al-Najjar, who manages the physiotherapy department at Al-Awda Hospital with MSF is familiar with the revolving door of patients that come in waves after each war.

“I am still seeing patients from the May escalation in 2021, getting rehabilitation and physiotherapy. In our department we have a high load of patients as well from the Great March of Return. We are now preparing the department, both in and out-patient, to receive the injured from this escalation.”

Shadi has returned to work, managing existing and new caseloads, despite his own experience over the weekend. His home was partially destroyed on the second day of the war, as his neighbours house was hit. His family didn’t have a chance to evacuate before his 9-month old son’s room was damaged – he found him in his crib surrounded by glass and shrapnel, but without injury. He says his youngest daughter has been traumatized, too.

“She is not able to sleep, crying all the time, I am trying to be as supportive as I can for them.”

Like Shadi, Sakher also emphasized that one of the worst parts of coping with the aftermath is in trying to support his children emotionally; “My eldest is now 5 years old. And after this escalation my son has been asking me to stop the war, and he always screams at night, he has not slept for 3 nights and when he is asleep he wakes up from nightmares and starts running and I don’t know what to do or how to help him.”

The trauma of repeated violence in Gaza has made a discernible impact on children and parent’s mental health. According to the WHO in 2021, 82 per cent of adolescents in Gaza reported overall poor to very poor levels of mental wellbeing. The United Nations’ 2022 Humanitarian Needs Overview states that more than half (53 per cent) of all children in Gaza are in need of child protection and mental health services. Additionally, 137,000 caregivers in Gaza are in need of mental health services.

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In the days following the escalation, MSF staff members and patients frequently expressed their concern for their children and other young people in Gaza who have grown up or will grow up in an environment where escalations take place with disturbing regularity.

After his wound dressings were changed, Wael, the 13-year old brother of Sakhar and Mahmoud was asked by an MSF support worker what he wants for the future.

“I hope that there will be no wars in the future, and the calm (in Gaza) stays, without any bombings.”

“Returning to Haiti means death”

“Returning to Haiti means death”

Haitians seeking asylum in the United States continue to be at risk of being expelled and sent back to a country in crisis, where the capital, Port-au-Prince, has become a battleground between armed groups, causing thousands of people to flee their homes and leaving many residents with extremely limited access to health care or basic services.

More than 26,000 Haitians were expelled from the United States between September 2021 and June 2022. In May alone, the US government expelled nearly 4,000 Haitians.  Most Haitians have been expelled under Title 42, a health order invoked at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that allows for the blocking and rapid expulsion of migrants, including people seeking protection at the US border. This devastating policy has effectively shut down asylum at the US southern border and has been used to authorize over two million expulsions from the US.

While deportation flights to Haiti have been paused since June, without a change in US policy, Haitians who arrive at the US border could still be expelled to what has effectively become a conflict zone, as armed groups have taken over large areas of the capital. More than half of the patients arriving at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Tabarre, Port-au-Prince, have suffered life-threatening wounds, often from high-powered firearms. Armed clashes in two neighborhoods, Martissant and Cité Soleil, forced us to move longstanding medical programs in 2021.

The United Nations has documented a sharp increase in violence this year, with 934 killings, 684 injuries and 680 kidnappings in Port-au-Prince from January to the end of June. Many people who have fled the violence are living in informal displacement sites within the city in appalling conditions. In recent months, armed clashes have again destroyed water networks and disrupted water truck deliveries in Bel Air and other neighborhoods. MSF teams are adapting to the current rise in violence and insecurity, operating mobile medical teams and providing water and sanitation facilities.

“We see an increase in kidnappings and killings and people telling us they don’t feel safe in their homes, and it’s not safe to leave the house either,” said Cédric Chapon, project coordinator for MSF’s urban violence program in Port-au-Prince. “Access to water is also a big challenge. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen an epidemic of scabies, which is not usual in Haiti. And this is directly linked to the lack of water. People can afford small quantities of drinking water, but they can’t access clean water in quantities needed for hygiene.”

The situation is also dangerous for MSF staff, some of whom are trapped by the violence, unable to leave their homes to come to work. In some areas, MSF staff must work in basements and windowless rooms to avoid the risk of stray bullets.

Haitian migrants face dangers crossing Latin America

MSF also provides medical and mental health care along the migration route in the Americas, where for the past several years our teams have seen an increasing number of Haitians trying to reach the United States.

Haitian migrants often have family and support networks in the US, but Title 42 forces them to take increasingly hazardous routes to get there, from South America through the extremely dangerous Darién jungle in Panama. From April 2021 to early May 2022, MSF teams working in Panama with patients who had crossed the Darién jungle treated 417 women for sexual violence. 

The border between Mexico and the US is the final leg of their journey. In border cities such as Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, they join other migrants who are also waiting to cross, in many cases to seek asylum in the US. Migrants are often forced to sleep on the street, in abandoned structures, or in makeshift camps because there is not enough space at local shelters to accommodate the high number of people. Access to health care, food and basic services is limited and these cities are extremely dangerous, particularly for migrants, who are vulnerable to violence, including kidnapping and sexual assault.

“I’m here with my family, I have two children and times are tough,” said Wisly, 36, a Haitian man who had arrived in Reynosa, Mexico, in April, after a long journey through South and Central America from Chile. “We’re going through difficult times because of the heat, we’re sleeping in the street where anything can happen to you and I’m told we’re in a dangerous area. Anything can happen.”

Most of the migrants our teams are seeing along the migration route fled violence and general instability in Haiti many years ago. They initially found work in Chile and Brazil, but several factors, including an economic downturn, an inability to access documentation to legally work, and growing anti-migrant sentiment, have led thousands of Haitians to leave these countries in an attempt to reach the United States in recent years.  

Antogama Honoraí, 23, left Haiti for Brazil in 2019, but there wasn’t work for him there. So he set out for the US, traversing Colombia and Central America before reaching Mexico, where he has stayed for five months so far.

“I’m here because I want to go to the United States and help my family,” he said. “In the United States I have family. Here I’m alone. Here there’s nowhere to sleep. Yesterday it rained all day and I slept in dirty water. I don’t want to go back to Haiti. There’s no school there, there’s no food there, there’s no work….  Returning to Haiti means death.”

Risking everything to seek safety, then being treated like a criminal

“In that jungle you will die if you don’t have a good strategy,” said Louckensia Paul, 28, recalling her journey through the Darién jungle in Panama. “It’s a dangerous place. There are wild animals and routes that are not accessible and difficult crossings. There’s a point where you run out of food and you have to use all your strength to try to get out of there.”

Paul was interviewed in Nuevo Laredo in May, attempting to reach the United States a second time. She had left Haiti years ago and had been living in Chile and then decided to try to reach the United States. In December 2021, after traversing nine countries and risking her life crossing the Darién jungle, she reached the US, spent seven days in US detention and was quickly expelled back to Haiti.

“In Texas, I was put on a bus in chains—around my waist, on my ankles and hands,” she said. “I thought about the entire trip, and the sacrifices I made, for them to do that to me and treat me like a criminal.”

Back in Haiti, her family urged to try to reach the US again.

“It was a pleasure to see them, but it was also sad,” said Paul. “It felt like I was at someone’s funeral because the situation in Haiti is so bad. Everyone told me don’t stay here, do something and go back quickly because here there’s nothing. I’m just thinking about how terrible it is to go back to my country and not be able to feel happy to be with my family because the situation is so bad.”

MSF has repeatedly called for an end to Title 42 and an end to expulsion flights to Haiti on humanitarian grounds. Haiti is in the middle of a humanitarian, economic and political crisis. There is open fighting in the streets of the capital with increasing numbers of people wounded and killed, including by stray bullets, while many are unable to reach medical care or basic needs such as clean water.

No country should be sending people back to Haiti. The US must permanently end all deportation flights and further facilitate access to asylum processes for Haitians.

The people of Gaza: An Ongoing Suffer

The people of Gaza: An Ongoing Suffer

MSF teams on the ground in Gaza are assessing the impact of Israeli airstrikes on the health system and have donated pharmaceuticals for the operating theaters and emergency rooms of Gaza hospitals.

The closure of the border crossings since 2 August has compromised the entrance of essential medicines and medical supplies. In addition, the closure has led to a severe fuel shortage, which may impact clean water supplies, access to essential services, and the functioning of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.

Médecine donations following airstrike

It is essential that the healthcare system has access to fuel and medicine in order for hospitals to function at this critical moment. MSF welcomes any tangible actions that will prioritize the protection of civilian lives, open the border to essential supplies, and in particular lead to a lasting ceasefire. We will continue to work with our partners in the Ministry of Health to provide care to injured people in Gaza, as needed.

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A Hospital on Rails A glimpse of my journey on board MSF’s medical train

A Hospital on Rails A glimpse of my journey on board MSF’s medical train

By Yasser Kamaleddine*

I began writing these thoughts one month after completing my mission and returning to Cairo. During this time, I managed to rearrange my thoughts and recall the events of the five weeks I spent in Ukraine. Out of the ten years I spent doing aid work, this mission was my shortest time in the field. Yet, it offered me some of the richest experiences ever.

On May 13, I made it to Lviv in western Ukraine after a long journey. I traveled from Cairo to the Belgian Capital Brussels, then to Poland, before completing the journey by road to western Ukraine. I spent the journey thinking of the medical train that I heard so much about during the few weeks preceding my mission. This train is one of a unique medical activity. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen during my experience working in conflict zones and elsewhere. The medical train and its several denominations such as “hospital on rails” and “the escape capsule” spirited me to embark on the journey as if it was my first mission.

Lviv is a beautiful small city located near the western Ukrainian border with Poland. It was very calm and did not echo the seriousness of the war described by some as World War III. I saw people wandering the streets, moving between restaurants and shops as if the ongoing events had no impact whatsoever. I was suspicious of this deceptive calm, but before the end of the day, the alarms set off all over the city to warn of a possible Russian air strike. Restaurants closed their doors, some people went home quietly, while others wandered the streets and gave no caution to the alarm.

I had previously witnessed people’s resilience to the horrors of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, after only a few weeks of the outbreak of the war, I expected the situation to be more severe. It wasn’t long before I learned that the sound of the alarms was too familiar for the residents. It goes off daily to warn the residents of possible danger and get them to evacuate the streets and shelter from a possible raid. The alarms go off even though Lviv is located within a thousand kilometers of the clashes in the east of the country.

A journey of 40 to 60 hours on board the medical train

I spent one night in Lviv before joining the team to take the famous medical train. After each trip, the team spends the night in the city to rest and shower before setting off on a new evacuation journey. One trip takes about twenty hours from Lviv to the eastern frontline cities such as Kharkiv, Dnipro and Donetsk. While the total round trip takes between 40 to 60 hours, it may take longer if we send patients to more than one destination or shorter if the train is heading from the frontline cities to Lviv.

Before my arrival, I heard from my colleagues in Brussels that the country has one of the most complex and large train networks on the entire continent. The idea was simple and genius at the same time. From the outside, the train looked as usual as it could be with nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like a typical passenger train, but on the inside, it was equipped to cater to the needs of the medical team and transport about 30 patients from and to the eastern and western sides of the country.

The daily struggles of the “babushkas” during the war

The team on board consists of doctors, nurses, a logistician, and a translator. I was the field coordinator on board. Part of the team rests in Lviv, while 18 to 21 team members work on board during each trip.

The train served as a small mobile hospital equipped with 30 beds prepared for the care of the patients during the long journey. The MSF logistics team turned a full cabin into an intensive care unit with a bed capacity for five critically ill patients. This unit had most of what exists in hospital care units, such as two respirators and an entire network to produce and deliver oxygen.

Preparations for the trip begin upon receiving a notification from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and the hospitals around the front line. One of our fellow doctors residing in a city nearby conducts an exploratory visit. We determine the approximate number of patients who need to be transferred to Western Ukraine with a full description of their medical state and needs. The number of patients may decrease or increase during the trip. Once this information is collected, the team is notified to prepare for a new journey. We’d meet at the train station half an hour before the trip to take the medical train as soon as it arrives. When the train heads to pick up the patients, the team prepares the train to receive patients in all five cabins designated for this purpose. On the first night of the trip, two or three MSF staff members share the same cabin, knowing that the next night would be restless as the medical staff shares nighttime shifts to monitor the patients. In short, sleeping was hard throughout the trip.

I have not met a team this wonderful during my career. Most of the members had other jobs that they suspended to work on the medical train and save the lives of people fleeing the war. Based on the conversations I had with the team members, I realized that their decision stems from their belief that everyone has a role to play in times of disaster. The team feels so much pride in what they’re doing despite the challenges and dangers of the war. The members met people from their hometowns while being evacuated by the medical train. It also turned out that some members and some patients share mutual acquaintances and friends. Most of the team members were affected by the war on different levels. They or their families had to flee their cities and villages to safer places. The train was an art scene displaying the human stories shared by doctors, nurses, and patients throughout the evacuation journey.

During my time on the train, we managed to evacuate around 200 patients. Most patients suffer from war wounds caused by explosions or shrapnel. The team called most of our patients “babushka”, which means “grandmother” in Russian and Ukrainian. We often set off on a train full of babushkas. These grandmothers were struggling to fight the daily repercussions of this war. Most of them had refused to leave their homes when the war began but had to leave them as patients after being injured. During that period, most of the residents of the villages around the frontlines fled their homes. Only those who did not have enough money to flee or relatives to host them stayed. Most of the Babushkas refused to leave their birth towns. “I will go home as soon as possible. I never wanted to leave my house in the first place, but now I have to,” one of the babushkas told me.

A rabbit that costs an arm and a “leg”

Some patients told me how the war changed their lives and stole their loved ones. We met a patient who used to work as a construction worker. He is in his late forties and comes from a village in eastern Kharkiv. He had lost his father and mother before the war and was left alone in his home. He did not plan to leave his small house even as clashes approached and rockets roared. With no wife or children to fear for, his house and the little land around it were everything he had. One day, he heard a bang, then a closer one, before an explosion drove him several meters away and broke his arms. He recounted what happened in detail as if it were the story of another person.

“I didn’t know what to do to shelter from the shells,” he said. “I had seen what happened to my neighbors. A father, a mother, and their four children had died in the basement of their house. The shells had buried them under the rubble. I did not know if I was safe in the open, but I was sure I don’t want the same ending.”

Another war-wounded patient was joking about what happened as she sat on the bed with one leg amputated and the other injured by an explosion and shrapnel. “I was bringing a rabbit from the barn to prepare dinner for my friends,” she joked, “that was the most expensive rabbit I had in my life. It cost me a leg.” She smiled even though she was in obvious pain even after taking painkillers. Her seventy-year-old dad accompanied her on the journey. He looked at her with a mixture of sadness and pride as she described how she ended up on this train. “We’ll pass through this crisis. She is a strong woman, she got her toughness from me,” he told us as we moved away from her bed.

Neutrality and Impartiality

Neutrality and impartiality fall under the fundamental principles of the humanitarian work established by the battle of Solferino in 1859. This battle is considered an inspiration to international and humanitarian organizations active nowadays, even though the reality today is more complicated and less ideal.

As an aid worker, I constantly think about the living conditions of the people in need on both sides of the frontlines anywhere in the world. It has always been challenging for workers in the humanitarian field to deliver crucial humanitarian aid to the people in need regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation during the wars.

In the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and despite the presence of MSF in Russia since 1992, to date, MSF teams are unable to reach people in areas controlled by Russia and groups supporting it in Ukraine. The scope of aid work during wars is constantly narrowing all around the world. Accessing people in need and saving the lives of those affected by armed conflicts without discrimination is becoming more and more challenging.

I spent five weeks in Ukraine before packing my things to return to Cairo. On the night of my travel, I attended a small party prepared by the team to bid me farewell. That night, I shared my feelings with them and told them how each of them has impacted how I see the reality of suffering during wars. I expressed my fascination with the wonderful souls of all the team members on board the train.

Despite the distance between Egypt and Ukraine, the war was the focus of all media attention. Therefore, many questions came to my mind as I was packing. How can the geopolitical analysis and the breakdown of the causes and repercussions of the war (from the NATO membership and the oil trade to the loaf of bread) ever explain the suffering of the people I met on the train? I could not come up with an answer. I will content myself with the good memories, the rich experience, and the relationships I made. These will never leave my mind. And now, here I am, saying goodbye to the team and returning home, while I wait for my next mission.

*Yasser Kamaleddine is a pharmacist and aid worker from Egypt. He joined MSF in 2012 and assumed managerial roles in aid operations such as project coordinator and head of mission. He worked in several missions in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Greece, Kenya, and Ukraine. Yasser is currently the head of mission in Egypt. He holds a master’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Cairo and a master’s degree in anthropology from University College London.

MSF medical train journey from Kharkiv to Lviv

MSF medical train journey from Kharkiv to Lviv

MSF's medical train transports patients from hospitals areas near to the heavy fighting in the east of Ukraine to hospitals further west. Since 31 March 2022 we have transported more than 600 patients.
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Published on June 24, 2022