Médecins Sans Frontières international staff return to Somalia

Médecins Sans Frontières has begun returning its expatriate staff to Somalia. Médecins Sans Frontières’s international aid workers were evacuated from the country as fighting escalated in December.

“It has not been easy to leave our patients and Somali colleagues. I am glad we are back,” says Médecins Sans Frontières Head of Mission David Michalski. Along with a nurse, a logistician and a field coordinator, Michalski returned to the Médecins Sans Frontières project in Somalia’s Bakool region on January 3rd.

In the coming days and weeks, international aid workers are returning to several of Médecins Sans Frontières' eight projects in Somalia. However, it is too early to say when all projects again will be fully staffed.

Changes

“We need clearly defined local authorities and community leaders to liaise with in the places where we work,” Michalski explains. “In some locations the authorities are being replaced. These changes need to be finalised before we can return foreign staff to these specific areas.”

Bakool was spared from the recent fighting. Its authority structure remains the same, which has enabled Médecins Sans Frontières' international staff to rapidly return to the region.

National staff

The Bakool project consists of a health centre in the regional capital Huddur and four peripheral health posts. The project offers kala azar and tuberculosis treatment, therapeutic feeding, mother-child health care, and basic medical aid.

“The community has continued to make use of our health services. Thanks to our Somali staff, the project has fared well while the international aid workers were evacuated,” says Michalski. “In the long run, however, the quality of our projects would suffer without international staff present. Expatriates provide training, supervision and skills that are otherwise impossible to find in Somalia.”

National staff have kept all Médecins Sans Frontières' projects running since large-scale fighting erupted between the Union of Islamic Courts and the Transitional Federal Government backed by Ethiopian forces. An estimated 350 war-wounded patients have also been treated by Médecins Sans Frontières in this period.

Precaution

Michalski stresses that Médecins Sans Frontières' evacuations were precautionary measures, not responses to specific threats against the areas where the organisation works:

“The situation was changing quickly. When aerial bombardment started targeting airports, we felt it was necessary to pull out our remaining expatriates. We could not risk losing the option of evacuating by plane.”

Médecins Sans Frontières has provided medical aid in southern and central Somalia since 1986.