In places where MSF operates, getting access to the right antibiotics is a matter of life or death.

Antibiotics are the cornerstone of modern medicine, treating a vast range of infections. But, over the last few years we've been seeing a troubling phenomenon where the standard antibiotics used to treat some diseases have simply stopped working.

This is known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is when some of the bugs which cause disease mutate and find ways to avoid the effective elements of antibiotic medicines.

What can be done when this happens and what steps is MSF taking to tackle AMR more broadly? We speak to AMR expert Mohamad Khalife.

Presented by Laura McCullough

Edited by Kate Lee and Sandy McKee

Photo: MSF

In the latest episode of Everyday Emergency, we’re looking at the humanitarian crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC – a huge country in Central Africa that’s home to around one hundred and eleven million people.

The northeast of the country has endured decades of insecurity since the fallout of the 1994 genocide in the neighbouring country of Rwanda. Driven by ethnic tensions and a fight for resources, the conflict involves more than one hundred armed groups, such as the widely-known M23, as well as Congolese government forces and UN peacekeepers.

The most recent phase of the conflict has been rapidly evolving, and intensified since December 2024. It has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and resulted in many casualties and violent injuries across the provinces of North and South Kivu. Tragically, MSF staff members have also lost their lives.

To learn more about what’s been happening, and how MSF has responded, we spoke to Juliette Seguin, MSF’s Emergency Coordinator in Goma, DRC's capital city in the east of the country.

If you would like to support our life-saving medical work around the world, please visit msf.org.uk to donate. Thank you.

Presented by Kate Lee

Edited by Sandy McKee

Photo: MSF

Two years ago, MSF doctor Javid Abdelmoneim received a cryptic message from his cousin in Khartoum that said "Your dad is safe". But safe from what?

On 15 April 2023, a brutal civil war broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.

From early attacks around the capital Khartoum, the fighting quickly escalated and spread to other parts of Sudan. Almost overnight, millions of people found themselves trapped in a conflict.

Now, two years on, the situation is both shocking and complex.

Sudan has become the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 12 million people forced from their homes. Many are without access to essential healthcare, and there have been widespread outbreaks of diseases like cholera and measles. Meanwhile, the number of people suffering from malnutrition, or women and children dying is truly alarming.

Throughout all of this, people – civilians – have been subjected to horrific violence.

The United Nations recently described this situation in Sudan as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

In this episode of Everyday Emergency, we speak to Dr Javid Abdelmoneim who recently returned from an assignment in the crisis-hit country. He is an emergency medicine specialist, and an extremely experienced MSF doctor who also spent the first eight years of his life growing up in Sudan.

His story is deeply personal, at times upsetting, but incredibly powerful.

If you would like to support our life-saving medical work around the world, please visit msf.org.uk to donate. Thank you.

Presented by Cece Leadon

Edited by Sandy McKee

Photo: MSF

In crisis zones across the world, hospitals have been attacked, supply trucks blockaded and funding cut. So, what is the state of humanitarian aid today?

In this episode of Everyday Emergency, we’re speaking to Chris Lockyear – the Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF). He’s one of the leading voices in MSF, and an expert on humanitarian aid and the crises we currently face.

We sat down with Chris after a recent visit to Sudan, where MSF teams are operating in what has been dubbed a ‘humanitarian void’ despite more than 11 million people being forced from their homes by the civil war.

We also spoke about the situation in Gaza following the desperately needed ceasefire, and about the dangerous and far-reaching consequences of the aid cuts recently announced by governments including the UK and USA.

If you would like to support our life-saving medical work around the world, please visit msf.org.uk to donate. Thank you.

Presented by Nick Owen

Edited by Sandy McKee

Photo: MSF

At a groundbreaking hospital in the Jordanian capital Amman, a dedicated team from Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) work to treat and rehabilitate war-wounded people from conflict zones across the Middle East and North Africa.

Rula Marafeh, an experienced physiotherapist, shares her story from a unique project that has been saving and transforming lives since 2006.

In places such as Gaza, Sudan, Yemen and Syria, as violence pushes healthcare systems to breaking point, MSF works to evacuate patients in need of the most specialist care. Once in Amman, a spectrum of expert teams work to surgically reconstruct limbs, treat aggressive infections, teach patients to use their new bodies, and crucially, heal the unseen trauma each new arrival carries with them.

If you would like to support our life-saving medical work around the world, please visit msf.org.uk to donate. Thank you.

Presented by Amber Dowell

Edited by Sandy McKee

Photo: MSF/Peter Bräunig

The first war of independence of Chechnya with the Russian Federation starts in 1994 and runs for two years. In 1999, while the country and its people are still struggling to recover, the Russian authorities start bombing Chechnya again.

Through these tough years in the North Caucasus and when access is repeatedly blocked by the Russian forces, MSF staff continues to try to provide food and medical aid to people inside Chechnya and to Chechen refugees in the surrounding republics.

From the start of the first war, MSF feeds the press with information on the rapidly deteriorating conditions and the Russian’s refusal to let them into many areas of the country.

While the Russian Federation President, Boris Yeltsin talks publicly about a peace plan, his forces carry out a ruthless bombing campaign on rebel-held villages in southern Chechnya.

MSF sections are united in wanting to speak out about what their staff witnessed before being forced out of the region, but there’s vigorous debate on how best to draw attention to the atrocities.

What is the best way to bring the world’s attention to the plight of the Chechen population? MSF national staff are still working on the ground in southern Chechnya, so will speaking out put their lives in even more danger?

With hostilities in Chechnya flaring up again in what the Russian Federation terms as “anti-terrorist operations”, MSF leaders decide to use the ceremony of the reception of Nobel Peace Prize to call on the international community to intervene. But MSF teams are struggling to work in a Chechnya facing all-out war and dangerous security problems.

Instead, MSF starts support refugees in the neighbouring republics where they collect first-hands accounts. Inside Chechnya, operations are run through staff members from the Caucasus who are trained, supported, and managed from afar by international teams in the region.

MSF is in a difficult situation that raises many questions: Should MSF be speaking out based on refugees’ testimonies if there are no operational activities with international staff permanently on the ground sin Chechnya? When dealing with a regime in denial of the realities of a war, why is it important to use the word ‘war’? Is it up to MSF to call for this qualification?

Throughout the year 2000, MSF seizes every opportunity to raise the alarm on the Chechen’s fate with governments and institutions around the world, but to little concrete effect other than general condemnation.

With still no international staff in the country, MSF sections resort to so-called ‘remote control’ management, using locally hired employees to deliver aid on the ground. Concerns over the organisation’s legitimacy in speaking out remain and soon one of the sections starts making unauthorised and dangerous trips over the border into Chechnya from Dagestan where they ran distributions of basic care items.

Under attack in the Russian media, MSF wonders whether it should ignore or address the accusations of espionage regularly thrown at the organization?

MSF’s operations in Chechnya are slowly starting back up again after 3 years of being run remotely. Although the bombing stops, general insecurity is pervasive and restarting these programmes is not without risks.

With an international team back on the ground in Chechnya, everyone agrees on the need to document the situation more thoroughly. A collection of patients’ accounts in the report “Chechnya: The politics of terror” is handed over at a press conference.

The various MSF sections agree on a coordinated media strategy for getting news out of Chechnya and into the press, in particular the Russian media.