MSF and MSF Podcasts: Paris/Niamey - Monday morning, October 22, five men - one of whom was armed - attacked a team of MSF workers travelling in two vehicles by road from Agadez to Dabaga, where MSF has been providing medical care at the local health post since the start of October.
The assailants seized the vehicles and their contents. Our team of six - one doctor, one nurse, one logistics specialist, one pharmacist and two drivers - made their way to the nearest village on foot and were then able to return to Agadez.
Following this violent incident, MSF has decided to cease activities in Dadaga and the surrounding region because the security situation means we cannot adequately carry out our work for the people living in this area. Moreover, this incident follows the earlier theft of a vehicle, on October 16, on the same road to Dabaga.
MSF was about to lodge a complaint about the theft of the vehicle and the attack on our team, when the Governor of the Agadez region officially requested us to "suspend all activities in the Agadez region". The six members of MSF's team in Agadez returned to the capital, Niamey, on Tuesday, October 24. For the moment our work in Dabaga has ceased.
Dabaga, in the district of Aïr, is a town about 50km north of Agadez. At the start of October, with the authorities' agreement, we started providing medical, nutritional and logistical support to Dabaga's health post. The programme's objective was to improve the level of care in a region where violent clashes have disrupted peoples' access to health care.
Our team had been conducting medical consultations in the health post, had started improving the supply of medicine and medical equipment, and was undertaking building work to improve the buildings and ensure better hygiene and a clean water supply.
Around 50 consultations were being carried out each day and scores of malnourished children had been admitted. 23 moderately malnourished children, and 24 severely malnourished, had been admitted over the past week alone.
MSF is continuing its activities in the south of Niger, in the region of Maradi. MSF has worked in the Maradi region since 2001 and is currently running a nutrition programme based in one hospital and 12 health clinics. More than 8,500 children were admitted onto this programme in the third quarter of 2007, over 80 percent by means of MSF's outreach clinics.
Alongside this programme, between May and October MSF has been distributing special food supplements on a monthly basis to more than 63,000 children.
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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
