FRANCAISMédecins Sans Frontières - History
2000-2009
-January 2000, Equatorial Guinea: MSF-France stops its operations as denounces the “cupidity” of the government, which hinders the efforts of humanitarian agencies.
-February 2000, Madagascar: MSF-France withdraws from the Toliara province, and publicly accuses the authorities of impeding assistance to the victims of a cholera epidemic.
-July 2000, Colombia: MSF closes a medical programme in the Choco province after the abduction of a volunteer, released six months later.
-From January 2001, Russia: an MSF volunteer, Kenny Gluck, is abducted in Chechnya, where combatants are fighting for independence against Moscow’s troops. The increasing number of kidnappings and rackets leads MSF-France to withdraw, leaving a clear field to the Russian soldiers who are responsible for many abuses, and who want to get rid of embarrassing witnesses. MSF comes back to Chechnya in May 2002. But in August 2002, it has to withdraw again from Chechnya, Ingushya and Daguistan, where Nina Davydovitch, the person in charge of the Russian NGO Druzha, and Arjan Erkel, the Dutchman leading the MSF-Switzerland’s mission in Makhachkala, have been abducted (both will be released later, Arjan Erkel in April 2004). In a report made public on the 6th of May 2003 in Moscow, the organisation denounces the Russian policy consisting in the forced repatriation of the Chechen refugees in Ingushya. By forbidding to build houses in the Ingushyan camps, Vladimir Poutine’s government wishes to control humanitarian aid and to attract refugees back to the Chechen Republic, which is officially “pacified” by force. MSF’s relations with Moscow become very difficult and, on the 30th of September 2003, the movement’s Belgian section must put an end to its programmes against tuberculosis in Siberian prisons: the Health ministry had refused to allow the use of special treatments, though these were recommended by the WHO (World Health Organisation).
-April 2004, Italy: on Lampedusa Island, the authorities compel MSF to stop its programme in the warehousing where illegal African immigrants are detained.
WORK IN PROGRESS. PLSE CONTACT US IF YOU CAN HELP TO TRANSLATE FROM FRENCH.
