Διεθνής Ετήσια Αναφορά Δράσης 2012

At the end of 2012 our colleagues Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut were still being held hostage after their abduction from a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya on 13 October 2011. This is one of the longest-running kidnappings in the history of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Insecurity has had a significant impact on our activities this year, and many teams continued to work in unpredictable and unstable situations. Seven MSF staff were detained in Myanmar in June, and two of them remain in detention. Two members of staff were kidnapped in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in April. Several hours later, they were released unharmed. Armed men entered Huth health centre, in Yemen, and threatened MSF staff. Daynile hospital, on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, was damaged by shellfire. We have not always been able to respond to people’s needs as we intended.

Challenges to delivering healthcare in conflict zones In Syria, conflict intensified. Extreme violence, the collapse of the health infrastructure and the displacement of millions of people led to massive needs, but MSF has been frustrated at serious blockages to providing care. According to authorities, by early 2013, 57 per cent of public hospitals in Syria had been damaged, but lack of authorisation from the government, limited cross-border access and the severe constraints caused by insecurity have all restricted the provision of humanitarian assistance. Beginning with donations of drugs and medical supplies, our teams managed to expand activities over the year, setting up hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib governorates. But we have been forced to limit operations to opposition-controlled areas of the country and neighbouring countries. We are concerned about what the constraints on humanitarian assistance will mean for the people of Syria in the future.