Now, more than ever, this is a time for solidarity. In 2025, MSF teams responded to some of the most difficult and complex humanitarian emergencies in our history. We provided desperately needed medical care in Gaza amid genocide. Our teams assisted people caught in the raging war in Sudan, a conflict that has gone mostly ignored by much of the world. We provided mental health support and other health care services to migrants and asylum seekers on the road in the Americas. And we brought care to people living in remote parts of Afghanistan, where essential health services would otherwise be out of reach.
We responded to help communities in these and many other places around the world as massive cuts to foreign assistance by the US and other countries gutted global health systems. MSF does not accept funding from the US government, so the aid cuts have not directly affected us. But we have seen the devastating impacts as clinics run by other organizations were shuttered, lifesaving medical supplies were left stranded in warehouses, and people in low-resource and emergency settings were left with even less access to care. We cannot do our work alone, especially as many of the world’s most dire humanitarian emergencies intensify.
It’s in that spirit of “with-ness” and solidarity that we bring you another installment in our long-running “year in photos” series. In this issue of Alert, we are featuring a selection of portraits and personal stories from MSF staff members in Gaza, part of a series coproduced by Brandon Stanton, creator of the Humans of New York photography project, and Nour Alsaqqa, MSF communications officer in Gaza. While these stories are suffused with grief and pain, they also convey the spirit of sumud, or steadfast perseverance, at the heart of our humanitarian movement.
We’re also including a selection of photos taken in Sudan and Chad by photojournalist Moises Saman. Saman visited MSF projects on both sides of the border, where people’s lives have been shattered by Sudan’s ongoing conflict, which has forcibly displaced nearly 12 million people. Many of the MSF staff members caring for displaced people in the camps in eastern Chad are themselves refugees.
You’ll also find snapshots of the human impacts of the aid cuts on communities already navigating conflict and crisis. In Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, the delivery of post-rape supply kits that were set to be distributed by aid organizations was canceled, even as conflict and displacement fuel skyrocketing rates of sexual violence.
When MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, Dr. James Orbinsky, then president of MSF’s International Council, made an acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway. “We are not sure that words can save lives,” he said in that address, “but we know that silence can certainly kill.” I think of this quote often. As we face unprecedented challenges around the world, I am reminded of similar urgent words from American writer and activist James Baldwin in a 1970 letter to professor and fellow activist Angela Davis, who at the time was jailed as a political prisoner. “Since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal,” Baldwin wrote, “I have been making as much noise as I can.”
This is what bearing witness means for MSF. As you look at these images and read these stories, I hope you’ll be inspired to join me in making as much noise as you can.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rasha Khoury
President, MSF USA Board of Directors
