Darfur: Concern and confusion following MSF teams’ expulsion

Sudan | 11 March 2009

Twenty-eight international aid workers arrived recently in Paris and Amsterdam after Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was expelled from northern Sudan. Together with their Sudanese colleagues, they represent half of the MSF staff working in Darfur. They are all worried about the future of those with whom, and for whom, they worked over weeks or months and they wonder why they had to stop this essential medical aid.

“I just don’t understand,” says Eric Jeunot, who served as MSF’s program manager in Zalingei, western Darfur, for seven months. “I can’t believe that this is really happening.”

Since December 2003, MSF had been providing medical aid in this city of 130,000, whose population includes 100,000 displaced persons. “I can hardly believe it. I can see the dozens of patients who came to the clinic in the displaced persons’ camp at Hassa Hissa every day, says Jeunot. “Now when they arrive, the door will be closed. We also had two nutritional clinics for severely malnourished children. And we provided free care in the hospital departments where we worked — patients could be now required to pay, which is particularly worrying as they don’t have much money. And that’s not including the medical staff, who will no longer receive bonuses from us. They could be less motivated to continue working in the hospital.”

The problems are already visible. Pauline Busson, formerly MSF’s program manager in Niertiti, received a call for help from the team’s local staff members. “They said,