Christopher stokes msf biography

Now our medical train will go to Dnipro. We are in contact with the Kherson region leadership to know when such a need arises, to be ready to evacuate injured patients or others who need our help. Is it a common wartime practice when the occupier does not allow international aid, international missions to enter the city as was the case in Kherson?

But we were denied access. Yes, I have a lot of experience in other wars and usually, both sides always grant access to help civilians. Unfortunately, we cannot help there at the moment. And this is information that we all almost know. We cannot go there now and help. We usually rely on what we see ourselves, what our teams see. And as I mentioned, there are simply no pharmacies in all the settlements we visited.

I want to emphasize that all the medicines that we bring, that we provide, are provided free of charge because people do not currently have the opportunity to purchase them. And in general, speaking of basic needs: the first thing people need is heat, the second is water, and the third is safety. Then they will be able to feel more normal in this situation.

The situation is especially acute during a military conflict. We choose what to spend our budget on, and it is very important for us not to receive donations from governments, for example, from some parties. And we in the organization, responding to the needs we see on the ground, decide where the funds will be channeled, where they should be better used: Yemen, Afghanistan, Ukraine.

Christopher stokes msf biography

We distribute funds among different areas in need. You can google Doctors Without Borders in Ukraine and you will see a list of vacancies you can apply for. Doctors Without Borders is a democratic structure, even our top management is elected by vote. If you are a member of the community, you vote for your leaders. And this is how the MSF president is elected.

As for training, there is no special course. I would like to emphasize that we also evaluate risks very carefully and never jeopardize the safety of our staff. For example, on the right bank of the Dnipro River, we want to go very far, we want to go everywhere where help is needed, but we cannot go to some settlements yet because they are shelled heavily.

We have no right to send our employee there and we will never do so as we are concerned about his or her life and health. Is it just on-site first aid, surgery or do you follow up on some cases in some way, maybe help organize follow-up care? These donations include necessary medical supplies, medicines for some more serious procedures.

We also conduct trainings from time to time on the mass admission of victims with war injuries. And at the second level of care, at the specialized level, we work in Kostiantynivka, our doctors work in the admission department together with Ukrainians, with the local team. Therefore, everything depends on the region, everything depends on the need and we respond depending on a specific place, we do not have a general rule.

Can you compare what you see now with what you saw before? Thousands of kilometers along is destruction. In autumn, gardens were planted under shelling. We hoped for the best, but now there is nothing. My house has a slightly broken roof and windows. We boarded them up. It is bad that there is no electricity or gas. The entire city of Kunduz was deemed hostile.

No one in the chain of command consulted the no-strike list in the hours leading up to the attack. The report determines that our hospital was misidentified. This led to artillery shells from an AC being unleashed on our hospital without any hostile threat being confirmed. MSF continues to engage with the highest levels of the US and Afghanistan governments to gain assurances that this will not happen again.

At the core of the law of war is the responsibility that militaries have to distinguish legitimate targets from protected civilian sites. If there is no distinction made between a civilian and a combatant, then everyone becomes a potential target. For more than 40 years MSF has negotiated the protection of its medical facilities in conflicts around the world.

Our work in convincing warring parties to respect health facilities will continue. We will take our message to those with the fire-power in all of the places where we work. We will continue to demand of the most powerful and their allies that they turn their rhetoric into reality. And we will denounce those who seek to erode the laws of war.

She provides support to MSF operations in terms of context analysis, positioning and advocacy strategies. She also been sent to support emergency interventions during Ebola outbreaks in Liberia and the DRC In she worked on the covid pandemic, advising the MSF emergency response in Brussels and as an Emergency Coordinator in Ecuador.

Aurelie can be found on Twitter PonthieuAurelie. In this role, he concentrates on research, training and operational support as well as publications in the humanitarian field. Between his missions he returned to his former career as freelance journalist.