News, blog posts, and event announcements. Other websites are welcome to cross-post this material with attribution and a link to the original.
What's New
03/08/2014
With clashes still continuing in the Central African Republic, aid groups say the health and humanitarian situation looks set to deteriorate even further. Andrew Green reports. There is no guarantee of safety for many thousands of people living in the Central African Republic (CAR), let alone access to health care or other basic services. Months of ongoing clashes between rival militias have left at least 2000 people dead and forced 700 000 others to flee their homes for safety.
03/07/2014
Aid worker attacks and attacks against civilian aid operations were at their highest levels last year, said Abby Stoddard, senior program adviser for humanitarian action at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and a partner with Humanitarian Outcomes, an independent research group. Preliminary numbers show 172 major attacks on aid workers in 2013; the previous peak year was 2008, when there were 165 attacks.
03/02/2014
While the news that Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) will be allowed to continue their work in most of Burma is certainly welcome, the decision by the Burmese government to shut down MSF’s operations in Rakhine state continues a trend of denying rights to the Muslim population who lives there. The lack of medical care puts lives at risk, but the international community and media continue to focus primarily on the potential market that is Burma.
02/28/2014
Flashback to February 2011. Arab Spring. In Sana’a, Yemen, protesters peacefully assemble in a makeshift tent city, calling for an end to 33 years of the president’s autocratic rule. They are male and female, young and old, urban and rural. Their numbers grow to tens of thousands. On March 18 of that year, the protesters proclaim the day to be Friday of Dignity (Karama in Arabic). Tensions are high. Over the past few days, armed men said to be loyal to the president have built walls to contain the protesters in what had been dubbed “Change Square.” On the Friday of Dignity, as the protesters finish a prayer, masked gunmen set fire to the main wall and begin shooting into the trapped crowd.
02/28/2014
Attacks on Syria's medical community and infrastructure have devastated the health-care system. Government forces – and sometimes opposition groups – have deliberately targeted medical professionals, hospitals, ambulances, and supplies, preventing untold numbers of people from getting medical care and stopping medical professionals from providing services when they are critically needed.
02/26/2014
As entire towns in South Sudan suffer devastating attacks, medical care has also come under fire, with patients shot in their beds, wards burned to the ground, medical equipment looted, and, in one case, an entire hospital destroyed, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced today.
02/25/2014
KABUL, Afghanistan — The patients in the four hospitals run by Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan are the lucky ones, by all accounts, having arrived at well-stocked facilities that maintain international standards with scrupulously free care. But when the French medical aid organization, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, surveyed 800 of those patients last year, the results depicted a dismaying picture of unmet health care needs.
02/24/2014
Washington, D.C. – The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) condemned the attack on a field hospital in Atmeh, Syria, supported by the Orient Foundation. A car bomb went off outside of the facility Sunday morning, February 23, 2014. The most recent reports from the hospital list 16 dead, including four medical staff and a number of children, additionally, the explosion left 65 wounded.
02/21/2014
BEIRUT: An unprecedented aerial bombardment of Aleppo by the Syrian government has sent thousands of people fleeing in recent weeks and exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation in the city. Some of the most intense bombing came during the Geneva II peace talks between the Assad regime and the opposition-in-exile which began in late January, with 800 people dying in the first week of the discussions alone.
02/20/2014
In the Ukrainian capital, triage centers have sprung up around Independence Square, where dozens of people have died in the fighting. This video of three minutes and eleven seconds comes from The New York Times' website. See the related article, Converts Join with Militants in Kiev Clash.