Episode 1: Entering the enclave Duration: 27 mins The Muslim population trapped inside Srebrenica is living under constant shelling since the start of the war in Bosnia in 1992. Even after the UN declared the city a ‘safe area’ in March 1993, not much had changed. The joint French/Belgian MSF unit entered Srebrenica with UNPROFOR leader General Morillon in March 1993. They were the first NGO allowed inside the enclave. There, they witnessed the French General vowing to protect the enclave’s popu...
Jan 28, 2021•27 min
Our producer Jess Brown looks into the potentially catastrophic secondary impacts of COVID-19 on the lives and health of women and girls. Sexual and reproductive health services are difficult to access in normal times and the secondary impacts of COVID-19 have made them even more elusive This episode includes voices from our projects in Honduras and South Africa, discussing the impacts of losing access to essential sexual and reproductive health services, particularly safe abortion care and cont...
Jul 07, 2020•32 min
In this episode of “Inside Yemen”, Agnes and Natalie take you to Mocha on the banks of the Red Sea – a strategic crossroads just two hours from the front line where landmines are wreaking havoc among the civilian population. A tent hospital, the sound of artillery fire and an all-pervading wind: welcome to Yemen.
Apr 02, 2020•6 min
In episode 1 of “Inside Yemen”, you are plunged straight into the heart of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. Natalie tells you about her journey to Saada in the mountains in the north of the country. This is Houthi territory - the target of thousands of airstrikes over the last five years. Not far away, Thierry and his expedition are heading for the besieged town of Taiz, through the mountains and at night… to avoid the snipers.
Apr 02, 2020•10 min
Bernard knows Yemen well, especially his operating theatre. Let’s go to the emergency department of an MSF hospital trapped between the frontlines south of Hodeidah and surrounded by mine fields.
Apr 02, 2020•8 min
It is Ghassan’s turn to take you deep into Yemen to discover the cholera epidemic that broke out across the country in 2016 and 2017, amidst controversy and media manipulation.
Apr 02, 2020•9 min
A grenade ready to explode, armed militia in a pick-up, Kalashnikovs everywhere. Ghassan and Thierry tell you about the everyday violence in Aden, the southern port where all semblance of normality has been lost.
Apr 02, 2020•7 min
Is Yemen’s a hopeless war? And what should be done when we can “only” care for people we know nothing about? In this last episode of “Inside Yemen”, Natalie takes you back to the north of the country, into the caves that serve as shelters for families when the bombs rain down.
Apr 02, 2020•5 min
In this episode of Everyday Emergency, Nick Owen hears from MSF staff who have been working with some of the populations most vulnerable to changing weather patterns and environmental degredation. Our guests detail the steps MSF is taking to better prepare for future climate crises. We'll also be looking at the ways in which these increasingly significant climate shifts can have a knock-on effect in terms of conflict and displacement. --- Subscribe through iTunes or your favourite podcast provid...
Jan 31, 2020•26 min
In this episode of Everyday Emergency, host Nick Owen takes you through some of the most pivotal MSF moments from the past decade, with firsthand accounts from our staff on the ground. You'll hear about our response to the sheer devastation of the Haiti earthquake, the Ebola outbreak gripping West Africa and how in recent months we've restarted our search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean as the European migration crisis continues. To learn more about the topics discussed in thi...
Dec 31, 2019•35 min
In this episode of Everyday Emergency we hear about the lived experience of Venezuelan women bearing the brunt of their country's healthcare crisis and the difficulties they continue to face in Colombia. An estimated four million Venezuelans have left their country since the collapse of its political and economic systems, and at least 1.4 million have come to neighbouring Colombia. They are coming from a country where, over the last few years, most people had no access to medicines and essential...
Nov 30, 2019•18 min
Yemen is in the grip of war. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world. British anaesthetist Dr Elma Wong has recently returned from her fourth assignment working in the country with MSF. In this episode of Everyday Emergency, we talk to Elma about her time in Mocha, a town on the west coast of Yemen. It sits around halfway between the port cities of Hodeidah to the north and Aden to the south, and our emergency medical centre is the only one of its kind in the area. To support our te...
May 23, 2019•24 min
In this episode of Everyday Emergency, we take a look at one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times. The Rohingya are a group of people who have lived for centuries in Myanmar. Due to their ethnicity, they are denied citizenship and are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Violence and oppression has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to countries neighbouring Myanmar, either by land or sea, over the course of many decades. But in August 2017, a brutal campaig...
Dec 06, 2018•36 min
In this episode of Everyday Emergency, we hear from three MSF medics who have been working in the Syrian city of Raqqa. A former stronghold of the so-called Islamic State, Raqqa is littered with improvised explosive devices and remnants of war that are causing dire consequences for people returning to the city. Doctors Javid Abdelmoneim and Pippa Pett, along with nurse Michael Shek, helped to establish a trauma stabilisation unit in the east of Raqqa. The role of the unit is to save lives in the...
Apr 18, 2018•29 min
Nina Rajani, a doctor from London, has just returned from Iraq. On this week's episode, Nina explains what it took to treat people caught between the vicious spiral of violent conflict and poor health. "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from MSF. In each episode, we bring you true stories from the frontline of humanitarian emergencies across the world. From the conflict in Syria to the refugee crisis in Europe, we’ll be talking to people with some incredible stories that may just change your outl...
Jul 14, 2017•28 min
In the latest episode of our Everyday Emergency podcast, we speak to Emily Gilbert. An MSF project coordinator from London, Emily has spent her entire career working in conflict zones. Whether she’s in the Middle East or Central Africa, Emily’s main roles are to make sure her team is safe and that the project she’s managing runs as smoothly as possible. With a typical MSF project having 4-12 international and up to 200 local staff, it's by no means an easy job. In this episode, Emily also discus...
Jun 23, 2017•23 min
"You’ve got to be in a really, really awful situation to think ‘yes, I’m going to put my nine-month old child onto this rubber boat, because that’s the best option to me at the moment’." Last month, our host spent time on Aquarius, a search and rescue ship MSF operates alongside SOS Méditerranée. During his time on the ship as a communications officer, Nick captured the sounds of life on board - including the rescue of 560 people from four inflatable rubber boats. That rescue would also be the l...
Jun 01, 2017•26 min
Our regular host, Nick Owen, is somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean sea this week. He's on board the Aquarius doing search and rescue with Dr Connor Kenny. The pair are going to be capturing a live rescue for the next episode. In the meantime, we're going to take a look back at an episode featuring Connor from Series 1. He's being interviewed about his time in Greece caring for refugees and talking about the eviction he witnessed of thousands of refugees from a camp in the village of Id...
May 18, 2017•20 min
On this week's episode of our Everyday Emergency podcast, we meet Besh, a Kurdish asylum seeker living in London, UK. Besh and his family lived peacefully in a village just outside Mosul, raising livestock on their farm. In June 2014, everything changed. ISIS captured Mosul. The Iraqi army withdrew. And the militant group were headed straight for their village. Fleeing for their lives, Besh, his mother, and young brothers were forced to head for Turkey. After crossing the sea to Greece, the poli...
May 04, 2017•23 min
"I wasn't prepared. It left a scar. It was the first time I was exposed to so much avoidable death." On this week's episode of our Everyday Emergency podcast, we meet Javid Abdelmoneim, an emergency doctor living in London, UK. Five months into his second assignment with MSF responding to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the job was taking it’s toll on Javid. But just before things would get worse, a patient handed him a letter that changed his outlook and gave him the strength to carry on. "Everyd...
Apr 20, 2017•23 min
* Please be advised that this episode deals with sensitive issues relating to sexual violence and may be unsuitable for some listeners. In our latest episode of Everday Emergency, we meet Courtney Bercan - an MSF nurse who worked on one of our search and rescue ships in the Mediterranean. In this episode we hear a story written by Courtney while on board, about a patient whose story still haunts her. We invited Courtney to sit down with us and discuss her time on the ship, and how the stories of...
Apr 06, 2017•37 min
Elizabeth Wangeci's story is a remarkable one. Against the odds, Elizabeth, from Nairobi, was the first person to survive one of the deadliest forms of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Kenya. In the first episode of the second series of Everyday Emergency, on World TB Day 2017 we speak to Elizabeth nearly one year after being cured. We also hear from Mark Sherlock, an MSF TB doctor who works not far from Elizabeth in Nairobi. "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from MSF. In each episode, we bring yo...
Mar 24, 2017•27 min
The 3rd of October will be remembered as one of the darkest days in MSF's history. On this day in 2015, US airstrikes killed 42 people and destroyed the MSF trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. In this special episode of Everyday Emergency, we look back on the attack one year on with Dr Kass Thomas – an intensive care specialist from Australia – who was in the hospital on the night of the attack. Visit msf.org.uk/kunduzpodcast to hear more from Kass. If you feel compelled to act after listeni...
Oct 03, 2016•23 min
In our tenth and final edition of this series, we follow on from where our Mediterranean search and rescue episode left off. We speak to Conor Kenny, a doctor who has been caring for refugees in Greece. Conor also talks about the eviction he witnessed of thousands of refugees from a camp in the village of Idomeni. We'll be back with a fresh new series in early 2017 (and a few special editions in between) so make sure to stay subscribed. "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from MSF. In each episode...
Aug 19, 2016•19 min
Working in five countries in the last two years, from fighting cholera in South Sudan to helping migrants and refugees in Greece, it's fair to say Pierre Trbovic has seen his fair share of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders' (MSF) work. According to Pierre, the hardest job he had to do as an MSF anthropologist and health promoter was stand on the gates of our ELWA 3 Ebola management centre in Monrovia, Liberia. Pierre voluntarily took on the job of telling people suffering with the...
Aug 05, 2016•23 min
Earlier this year, paediatric nurse Johanna Bosowski embarked on her first mission with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to Agok, in northern South Sudan. Working on the neonatal ward, she encountered a young patient with a disease she had never seen in the UK before. In most developed countries, thanks to a vaccine, cases of tetanus are extremely rare. But, in 2013 (the latest year for which estimates are available), it still killed roughly 59,000 people around the world -...
Jul 22, 2016•25 min
Despite ranking alongside HIV as the leading cause of death by infectious disease worldwide, the global response to TB has been found wanting. Because the drugs used in standard treatment have not changed in over 40 years, they are becoming less and less effective due to increasingly high levels of resistance from the bacteria. In the seventh episode of Everyday Emergency, Australian doctor Amrita Ronnachit discusses her time battling the disease in Uzbekistan, and the case of one patient who st...
Jul 08, 2016•24 min
In our sixth episode we meet US gynaecologist Veronica Ades who has returned from her third MSF mission. In Precious Baby, Veronica describes the precarious situation for expecting mothers in the city of Aweil, South Sudan. You can read more from Veronica about her time in South Sudan, as well as her other mission in Jordan, on the MSF blog: blogs.msf.org/en/staff/blogs/love-labor-loss "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) In each episode...
Jun 24, 2016•27 min
In our fifth episode we meet Canadian doctor Simon Bryant who last year spent his summer on MSF and MOAS's search and rescue ship, the Phoenix. In 'One day, 52 senseless deaths', Simon describes his most challenging day on the Mediterranean. You can read more from Simon about his time on the search and rescue vessel on the MSF blog: blogs.msf.org/en/staff/blogs/moving-stories "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) In each episode, we bring...
Jun 10, 2016•26 min
In our fourth episode we meet British doctor Emily Wise who, in 2013, travelled to Uzbekistan - a country with particularly high drug-resistant tuberculosis rates. In 'The Darkest Hour', Emily describes in heartbreaking detail the final minutes of a TB patient's life. You can read more from Emily about her time in Uzbekistan on her blog: blogs.msf.org/en/staff/blogs/one-steppe-beyond "Everyday Emergency" is a podcast from Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) In each episode, ...
May 27, 2016•25 min
