2021 in photos, a year of humanitarian operations

021 is the tragic toll of ten years of war in Syria. It is also, but not only, an unprecedented food and nutritional crisis in Madagascar, eleven days of massive bombings in the Gaza Strip, the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan, Haiti in the grip of violence, and once again hit by a destructive earthquake... and the Covid-19 pandemic which continues to undermine health systems. 2021 also means our teams hard at work helping those who need it the most around the world. Retrospective in pictures of some of our humanitarian interventions carried out this year.

Greece © Dora Vangi/MSF

January

In Samos, Greece, nearly 3,500 exiled people are living crammed together in a center intended to hold fewer than 650. Most have taken refuge in makeshift tents in a nearby forest. They live there amid garbage cans, rats and scorpions, with very limited access to water and sanitation.

Seco Jallow arrived in France recently, he lives in the streets of Paris and sleeps under a bridge. To get treatment, he consulted one of the doctors from the MSF mobile clinic that circulates in the city and its surroundings, and which was set up during the second wave of Covid-19 in France.

Amatou fled violence that erupted in January in Bangassou, Central African Republic. Like more than 13,000 people, she took refuge in the village of Ndu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the other side of the Mbomou river. The 25-year-old girl is pregnant and has complications. She was transported by canoe, then by MSF ambulance, to the Bangassou University hospital, where the most severe cases were taken care of.

A midwife takes care of Amatou at the University Hospital in Bangassou, Central African Republic.

France Beldo, 31, was injured in the hand and shoulder during fighting that broke out in Bangui, ahead of the presidential election in the Central African Republic in December 2020. Numerous stray bullets were found in her garden , like this one.

“We cannot live in such violence all the time, with the sound of weapons. Fear is winning over people, we can no longer go outside. »

France Beldo, injured by bullet

Sudan © Ehab Zawati/MSF

February

Portrait of Solomon, a native of Abderafi, a village on the border between Tigray and the Amhara region, Ethiopia. The 34-year-old man was detained and injured by local militia. After witnessing the murder of two of his colleagues, he fled to neighboring Sudan and the Um Rakuba camp where MSF works.

“The living conditions in the camp are terrible: there is not enough food and water shortages, people live in shelters with no blankets, nothing. »

solomon

The MSF medical team, made up of doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, provides an update on the condition of patients admitted to the Covid-19 center at Al-Kindi hospital in Baghdad, Iraq.

In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Brazil, MSF's mobile clinic team visits discharged patients and those in quarantine as they test positive for Covid-19.

“We discuss with the family of the sick, we explain to them that the condition of their loved one does not always improve overnight and that they too must protect themselves because they all live under the same roof. »

Helen Cabuia, MSF nurse

Portrait of an old lady living in a retirement home in Tripoli, Lebanon, where the MSF mobile team vaccinates the elderly against Covid-19.

Hundreds of people have taken refuge in buildings being constructed at Shire University in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Since November 2020, Tigray has been embroiled in a civil war between government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (FLPT).

Ethiopia © Igor Barbero/MSF

March

Portrait of Wagiha with her children. The family now lives in the primary school in the town of Abi Adi, in central Tigray. In the region, schools are used to house people displaced by the violence.

General view of Camp 25 de Junho for displaced people in Cabo Delgado province, which has been plagued by violence following the rise of jihadist groups in northern Mozambique.

A man and a woman build a hut in the Mapupulu displaced persons camp. They fled the violence in the province of Cabo Delgado.

An MSF car is loaded onto several canoes in order to cross the Uélé river, in the health zone of Bondo in the DRC, where the association is carrying out a vaccination campaign against measles.

Madagascar © iAko M. Randrianarivelo/Mira Photo

April

Measurement of the arm circumference of a young child suffering from severe acute malnutrition in the commune of Ranobe, district of Amboasary, in Madagascar. In the southeast of the country, the population is facing an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.

Women line up outside one of MSF's mobile clinics, set up in the commune of Ranobe and other isolated villages to treat cases of malnutrition.

South Sudan © Lauren King/MSF

May

Aerial view of Bentiu IDP camp in South Sudan, which hosts more than 100,000 South Sudanese who have fled violence in the country.

After the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano a few days earlier, residents of Goma left their neighborhood to reach the town of Sake, about twenty kilometers away.

Water distribution in the city of Sake, where cholera is endemic and where hundreds of thousands of people have taken refuge after the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano.

Portrait of Habiba and her father. The 10-year-old girl lives with type 1 diabetes and needs to inject insulin twice a day. She keeps the insulin at home in a cooler and has learned to administer the medication on her own.

In Gaza, a young woman walks through the rubble of a building partially destroyed by aerial bombardment (left). An elderly man stands among the ruins of his neighborhood in Gaza. Eleven days of massive Israeli strikes, night and day, caused immense damage in the enclave in May (right).

Mediterranean Sea © Avra ​​Fialas/MSF

June

A boat with 93 people on board tries to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach the European coasts. They will be rescued on June 12 by MSF teams in charge of search and rescue operations on board the Geo Barents.