We’re getting ready for what seems will be a long and intense emergency. The healthcare system has been severely impacted at multiple levels, with secondary care being particularly affected. Hospitals, including operating rooms, are non-functional—not only for emergency surgeries but also for essential procedures like cesarean sections. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are […]
Read More… from Myanmar: MSF warns of severe healthcare disruptions amid ongoing emergency
As Rohingya become increasingly trapped by raging conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, those who cannot pay their way across the border into Bangladesh are being left without protection or assistance. “We heard explosions, gunfire and people screaming,” says Ruhul, describing the moment when his township, Buthidaung, was attacked on the evening of May 17. “My […]
Read More… from Rohingya: Trapped and forgotten; where can people seek safety?
Escalating numbers of Rohingya people with violence-related injuries have crossed the border into Bangladesh over the past week, says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), indicating the worsening humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. In the four days leading up to Aug. 7, MSF teams in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, treated 39 people for violence-related injuries. […]
Read More… from Bangladesh: MSF sees severe spike in arrivals of war-wounded Rohingya from Myanmar
This June 2024, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to indefinitely suspend its medical humanitarian activities in northern Rakhine following the extreme escalation of conflict and burning down of MSF’s office in Buthidaung Township. While in some townships in the central part of Rakhine MSF has been able to maintain a minimum level […]
Nimrat Kaur, Project Coordinator for northern Rakhine, Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). She arrived in the project just before Cyclone Mocha hit last year on May 14, 2023 and has seen first-hand the challenges faced by people living there. Now leaving Myanmar, Nimrat wants to share her experience and that of her colleagues, […]
Read More… from Myanmar: “With township hospitals shut, where will people go?”
In 2012, when violence erupted between Rohingya and Rakhine communities, Zaw Rina’s home in Pauktaw town was burned down. She was forced to flee with her family to a camp in Ah Nauk Ywe on a difficult-to-reach island in the remote western part of the state. The impermanence of the fragile bamboo structure she […]
Read More… from After 10 years in camps in Myanmar, Rohingya mental health continues to suffer
Myanmar’s public healthcare system is in disarray. Days after the military seized power on February 1, 2021, medical staff walked out of their jobs, spearheading the civil disobedience movement that saw government employees of all stripes go on strike. Most have not returned. Those on strike who continue to practice in underground clinics risk being […]
Read More… from Responding to COVID-19 in Myanmar: A letter from the team on the ground
After the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government on February 1, 2021, doctors and nurses were among the first to lead the protests – walking out of their jobs days after.
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Read More… from World AIDS Day 2021: Myanmar’s political turmoil threatens HIV care
The violence and intimidation committed by security forces in Myanmar is creating a climate of fear and disrupting HIV patients’ access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment.
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Read More… from Myanmar: MSF’s Yangon office becomes clinic amid collapsing health system