I return to these words often in my work with MSF, and they feel more relevant and vital than ever as 2024 draws to a close. Over the past year, our teams responded to unprecedented violence and humanitarian catastrophes. Every step of the way, we also worked to share the voices of our patients and staff surviving and bearing witness both to terrible human suffering and inspiring moments of human solidarity.
Over a year into the escalation of war on Gaza, most of this narrow strip of densely populated land has been reduced to rubble. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 1.9 million people have been forced to flee their homes—many of them several times over—by Israeli bombardments and evacuation orders.
Violence has also torn through the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where I spent my childhood. Since October 2023, Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have killed more than 700 Palestinians—including at least 160 children—and there have been over 600 attacks on health care, according to the World Health Organization.
Despite the dire and worsening conditions, MSF teams are still there—still performing surgeries, caring for mothers and newborns, providing mental health support, and bearing witness and speaking out about what they are seeing.
In Sudan, more than a year and a half of intense conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces has created a humanitarian catastrophe. Thousands of people have been killed, more than 14 million are currently displaced, and tens of millions more are facing crisis levels of hunger. Amid the conflict, MSF teams across the country continue to run medical programs providing primary health care, surgery, nutritional support, and more. And we continue to raise the alarm on this underreported crisis, with our reporting always rooted in what our teams and patients experience on the ground.
We’re doing the same in Haiti, where spiraling conflict between armed groups is fueling a humanitarian emergency; in Mexico and Central America, where migrants and asylum seekers face rising rates of violence on their treacherous journeys north; and in Ukraine, where war continues to uproot, injure, and kill civilians. In this issue of Alert you’ll find powerful photography and stories bearing witness to all of these emergencies and more—and to MSF’s lifesaving medical humanitarian work.
The photographs in this magazine reveal a year of heartbreak. But they also illustrate the profound hope at the heart of our work. In his speech 25 years ago, Dr. Orbinski also reminded the world that humanitarian action comes down to one thing: “Individual human beings reaching out to those others who find themselves in the most difficult circumstances . . . in the hope that the cycles of violence and destruction will not continue endlessly.”
As 2024 ends, many of the world’s challenges feel more decimating and intractable than ever. But I challenge you to hold tight to hope and to keep reaching out to people in need, no matter who or where they are.
Thank you, as always, for your support. We’re grateful to have you as part of our movement.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rasha Khoury
President, MSF USA Board of Directors
