Dear Friend,

So much has happened over the last week, and we know that engaging with the news might be overwhelming. Sometimes it’s hard to know what you can do to help. That is why we are reaching out to share an update on our responses to the ongoing emergencies in Haiti and Afghanistan:

Conditions are evolving quickly in both places, and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are committed to providing crucial medical care and adapting our services to meet acute needs. Our teams were prepared to respond in both countries because we were already on the ground. Keeping our essential medical services running in more than 70 countries wouldn’t be possible without support from donors like you.

MSF has been in Haiti for 30 years, but Saturday’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake compounded an existing humanitarian crisis. Recent flooding due to Tropical Storm Grace has caused additional suffering, and made it difficult for people to access medical care. To respond, MSF is sending in additional medical equipment, essential items, and health care staff. Alessandra Giudiceandrea, head of mission for MSF in Haiti, provides context from the ground:

"Our current priorities [in Haiti] are, above all else, to get a precise idea of the medical situation, to provide direct care to the injured when we can, or to refer them to functional medical structures once we ensure they are stabilized."

On the other side of the world in Afghanistan, fighting has suddenly ceased in many of the places where we work. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also known as the Taliban, has declared that the war is over and assumed control over the country. While many individuals and organizations have fled Afghanistan, our teams are staying put to provide essential medical care to people in the five provinces where we run projects.

Despite the uncertainties, more people are leaving their homes in search of care. We’re seeing an increased number of patients in our facilities with a wide range of health needs, including surgical interventions, COVID-19 treatment, maternal care, and more.

Our teams are committed to maintaining existing activities in all five of our project areas: Kunduz, Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, Khost, and Herat. In Lashkar Gah, health workers provided 815 consultations in our emergency room on August 17 alone, and continue to provide care to 300 people in the inpatient department.

To work safely in Afghanistan, MSF regularly speaks with all parties to the conflict to explain our principles. We are independent, neutral, and impartial. That means that MSF provides care to all people based on their medical needs, no matter their ethnicity, gender, or political affiliations. We first started working in Afghanistan in 1980.

Since 2012, MSF has been running a maternity hospital in Khost that provides crucial care and support for women to safely deliver their babies. From August 15 to 17, MSF doctors, nurses, and midwives at this hospital helped deliver 77 babies.

Thank you for standing in solidarity and taking action to respond to these emergencies. We're living through a critical moment in history, and it's never been more apparent that we must come together to care for our neighbors—both near and far.