One year later, Médecins Sans Frontières marks the anniversary of this disaster with a slideshow.

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Médecins Sans Frontières launches a new community malaria project in Bo.

In the aftermath of one of the biggest natural disasters of recent years, people urgently need shelter, clean water and food. Médecins Sans Frontières had existing operations in Myanmar when the cyclone struck and was able to respond to the crisis immediately.

In Sri Lanka, our teams are present at Point Pedro, in the Jaffna Peninsula, where the population is still isolated by the conflict. In spite of restrictions imposed by the governmental authorities, Médecins Sans Frontières pursues its activities in a region increasingly affected by war.

TRANSCRIPT

Five Kilometers from the border town of Teknaf, on the south east tip of Bangladesh, is a refugee settlement named Tal. Tal camp sits precariously on a tiny strip of land. It’s built on a Mangrove swamp, sandwiched between a busy highway and a tidal river. The road is a constant hazard with weekly road traffic accidents. The river floods the tiny dwellings daily.

Surviving in these most squalid of conditions are ten thousand refugees. They are ethnic Rohingya who have fled persecution and gross human rights violations in their homeland of neighbouring Myanmar. Most have been living in this cramped environment since it was formed over four years ago. Médecins Sans Frontières has been working with Rohingya in Bangladesh since their first major influx in 1992.

Shannon is the Médecins Sans Frontières Project Coordinator which focuses on providing health care services to Tal camp. Here she tells us about Médecins Sans Frontières activities within the camp.

SHANNON: Médecins Sans Frontières came into the camps about two years ago now and we have been the only NGO working in Tal camp and so because of that we have become very important to the people. We provide a feeding centre for malnourished children. We provide mental health counseling services through our mental health program and then Outpatient services through our small clinic. In that clinic we have ANC and PNC for pregnant women we have hygiene promotion in Tal and we have basic healthcare with four doctors and nurses.
Here is Kolja, the medical doctor at Médecins Sans Frontières' Teknaf project.

KOLJA: Most common problems that we see is diarrhoea, skin infections and respiratory tract infections. We see them also in the Bangladeshi population but they are much more common amongst the refugees. It is because they live in much poorer sanitary conditions, they live in very crowded little huts, they are smoke-filled when they cook, the rainwater is running through the camp, the river is coming up, flooding parts of the camp which makes up for a lot of diarrhoea. Of course the children suffer most of it. They have the least resistance. Malnutrition is widespread.

Frido is the Médecins Sans Frontières Head of Mission in Bangladesh

FRIDO: This group of ten thousand people have literally been picked up and about for the last fifteen/sixteen years. After they fled Myanmar in the early nineties, forcefully repatriated, fleeing again, moving from one home to another.
Aside from providing medical care, Médecins Sans Frontières has been advocating for the needs of the Tal population. Gaby, the Médecins Sans Frontières medical coordinator in Bangladesh explains:
GABY: Well right from the very beginning our main advocacy objective was to convince the government to put it nicely to make these people’s life a little bit nicer. We advocated for people to be moved, the people from Tal I’m talking about, from the place where they are in a better place and, yeah, it looks like advocacy produced some results and the government decided to make available this piece of land next to Lada Bazaar and European Union and UNICEF and the other NGOs which are in this partnership involved in the movement of Tal they are going to make it possible in the near future.
Médecins Sans Frontières has begun its handover to these partners. Here’s Frido again advising them on their approach to service provision.

FRIDO: Médecins Sans Frontières has always offered its services regardless of whoever came to our clinics and we are very strongly advising all of our partners to do exactly the same thing. One of the things very practically which we are doing right now, we have quite significant investments in water sanitation in Tal camp and also in the new location but at the same time we are also investing in water and sanitation facilities in the infrastructure around in the host community so that the local school also has potable water so that the local mosque also has clean latrines, so the community centres of the towns also have proper water.
Although Médecins Sans Frontières welcomes the move to the new camp there are still a number of concerns. Médecins Sans Frontières is advocating the need to address these issues promptly.

Frido continues:

FRIDO: But in the short-run I think our main concerns is the immediate food needs, call it 6 months, call it twelve months after the move and particularly the vulnerable groups they will need food support in terms of direct food aid. The whole protection issue the security issues around the new location are very much of a concern to us based on what people have said to us. It’s the education, it’s the livelihoods, the food security, the longer-term possibilities for employment and economy basically. And that’s where the other organisations come in because that’s really the developmental side of things, that’s really the long-term self-reliance, sustainability that other actors are very good at. So I think as Médecins Sans Frontières we’ve kicked this off. We’ve made sure that the first step has been taken. But there are many more steps to be taken and those will have to be done by others.

In addition to the Teknaf project, Médecins Sans Frontières also has a nutrition intervention in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of southeast Bangladesh. Médecins Sans Frontières has been working in Bangladesh since 1985.

Médecins Sans Frontières implemented an emergency program for the displaced in Batticaloa, following renewed conflict in the east of Sri Lanka in early 2007. Médecins Sans Frontières ended operations in the area following the return of most of the displaced population to their homes in December 2007.

A summary of Médecins Sans Frontières activities in Western Kenya, including Médecins Sans Frontières' response to newly displaced populations following civil unrest in early 2008.

Dr Julianne Millar discusses her role with Médecins Sans Frontières' HIV Project at the Blue House Clinic in Mathare, Kenya. Dr Millar specialises in pregnant women, particularly in antenatal care and reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Loris de Filippi, ex-Médecins Sans Frontières Head of Mission in Haiti, presents a country profile of Haiti and a snapshot of local Médecins Sans Frontières activities (February 2007).

A short video on the progress made in stemming the tide of AIDS in Malawi.