Ms Isabel Simpson:

I thank the Chair. Good afternoon to the Chair, Senators, Deputies, ladies and gentlemen. Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, would like to sincerely thank the committee for giving us this opportunity to present to it some critical humanitarian crises that we are responding to. In doing so, we will highlight urgent humanitarian concerns that MSF is encountering through its work.

Last year was a major milestone in MSF’s history as we reached our 50th anniversary. However, in many ways, we felt there is little to celebrate as the global needs in humanitarian medical action have only increased during this time. Major conflicts rage in Syria, Yemen and the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Globally, there are increased numbers of refugees and displaced and vulnerable populations, an increasing impact of climate change on communities in the global South, and increasing attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in conflict-affected settings where MSF is present. In South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, recurring outbreaks of preventable diseases such as malaria and cholera continue to cause high levels of mortality. In addition, we have all been battling the global Covid pandemic for more than two years. The new inequalities that it has created in access to vaccines, treatments and other medical technologies are a stark reality in MSF's work around the world. It is an issue this committee has looked at before and which we would like to see remain on its agenda.

This afternoon, we would like to update the committee on two key contexts that are high in our priorities at present. The first is Afghanistan, where MSF has worked for more than three decades and where protracted conflict has given way to a crisis involving a healthcare system which is entirely dependent on aid. With a population now experiencing food insecurity, increasingly high levels of acute malnutrition are being reported from our medical facilities on the ground.

Second, the movement of people from one place to another has always occurred but, since 2015, MSF has borne witness to and assisted people affected by an acute humanitarian crisis, worsened by inhumane migration policies at Europe’s borders and elsewhere. Whatever the drivers of migration may be - whether it is war, conflict, persecution, climate change or economics – migrants deserve to be treated with humanity and dignity. We last addressed our work on migration to this committee in 2018 and, regrettably, not much has changed since then. MSF still operates a search and rescue ship in the central Mediterranean, where many lives are being lost as people make the treacherous crossing to try to reach European shores. We know many people are being returned by the Libyan coast guard to places of detention in Libya that are overcrowded and rife with disease, and where they suffer further violence and abuse. In the camps on the Greek islands, our teams continue to provide care to migrants and asylum seekers as their health and mental health deteriorates from years of living in limbo. We see the desperation of these people, we treat the injuries they have received during their journeys or related to the conditions they are held in, and we continue to speak out.

Since last August, we have witnessed a new crisis emerging on the border between Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. We will hear from a colleague from the MSF team that is providing assistance to migrants at border areas but where access to deliver medical care and humanitarian aid remains hampered. The EU member states involved have failed to live up to their responsibilities to protect people’s lives, to uphold basic rights of people seeking protection and to permit humanitarian assistance to reach vulnerable people, regardless of whether they are in a small boat crossing the Mediterranean or hiding in a snow-clad forest in Lithuania.

On behalf of MSF teams providing impartial, independent medical assistance on the front lines of humanitarian crises around the world , we thank the committee for inviting us today. We will start our highlighting of a few key contexts by crossing to Sarah Leahy, recently returned project co-ordinator for MSF in Helmand province, Afghanistan.