As the fighting intensifies in and around Mosul, the humanit | Figure 1

DrsWithoutBorders

As the fighting intensifies in and around Mosul, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq continues to worsen. In response to increasing medical needs, @DrsWithoutBorders has opened a field hospital equipped with a surgery unit north of Mosul and another one in Al-Qayyarah to the south. The aim of these parallel centres is to answer to the medical needs as close as possible to the front lines. “The objective of these hospitals is to treat patients severely wounded because of the ongoing fighting,” said Barbara Turchet, MSF’s Head of Mission in Iraq. “For the most critically wounded in this area, offering care as close as possible to the front lines can be a matter of life and death.”

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A severely malnourished two-year-old girl receives treatment at a @DrsWithoutBorders-run hospital in Qayyarah, 60 kilometers south of Mosul in Iraq. @DrsWithoutBorders has been running a 32 bed hospital since December 2016. The hospital has an emergency room, an operating theater and an intensive therapeutic feeding center with a 10-bed capacity. Since March 2017, 450 malnourished children have been treated in the hospital.


In February, @DrsWithoutBorders opened a field trauma clinic with an emergency room, operating theatre, intensive care unit and in-patient department in a village south of Mosul, Iraq. For months it has been the closest surgical facility for thousands of wounded and sick fleeing conflict in West Mosul. Heightened cases of severe malnutrition have led @DrsWithoutBorders to set up a therapeutic feeding centre in Qayyarah. Those fleeing West Mosul have said there is no infant formula milk left, there is a lack of food and clean water, and conditions are expected to worsen now that supply routes have been cut off. “It is urgent that malnutrition treatment be provided to meet the needs, and that those displaced from western Mosul receive adequate food aid when they arrive,” Dr. Isabelle Defourny, MSF director of operations, emphasized.


@DrsWithoutBorders staff treat an infant rescued from West Mosul, Iraq, the only surviving member of her family. As fighting rages in Mosul, civilians in the city are caught in the crossfire with limited access to lifesaving medical care. “I’ve been through many other wars: Syria, Liberia, Angola and Cambodia, but I’ve never seen anything like this. In the operating theatre, every case we receive is severe and almost every day we have to deal with mass casualties. Our patients can be of any age, any gender and suffering from any type of war wound: sniper attack, mortar shelling, airstrike, landmine and other explosions. They are all putting their life at risk to flee a city under siege,” says Dr. Reginald, a @DrsWithoutBorders surgeon. “I’m shocked by the number of families dismembered by this war. By the number of mothers and fathers that begged us to save their sons or daughters as they were the only family members left alive. I’m impressed by the strength of the Iraqi people and by the generosity and hard work of our Iraqi colleagues. We could do none of this work without them.”


A @DrsWithoutBorders surgeon performs a foot surgery at MSF´s Al Salamah hospital in northern Syria. The 52-bed hospital includes an ER, an operating theatre, maternity care, and outpatient/inpatient services. It is the largest directly run MSF facility still inside Syria, managed by nearly 150 Syrian staff. The district has an estimated 100,000 people trapped in the area between shifting front lines and the closed Turkish border. After being forced to close when hostilities came too close, the hospital has reopened for emergency cases and surgeries.