Who we are

MSF is an international humanitarian organisation providing medical care in more than 70 countries.

Since 1971, we have been treating people caught in complex crises and chronic healthcare emergencies around the world.

From our paediatric nurses to our off-road drivers, we are experts at working in fast-moving and highly-insecure environments. So, whether it's launching a rapid response or delivering community care, we go wherever we are needed most.

In 2023, we admitted more than 1.3 million people to our hospitals and held more than 16.4 million consultations, including at mobile clinics and in refugee camps.

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MSF worked in more than 70 countries in 2022

Our vital work often hits the headlines when there's an emergency such as an earthquake, war or disease outbreak.

However, our teams are also running long-term medical programmes for vulnerable groups cut off from care, or speaking out about unseen suffering and the policies that cause it.

Around the world, 365 days a year, we are there even when the cameras are not.

Our latest news and stories

What makes MSF different?

MSF Doctor Luana Lima seeing patients at the MSF hospital in Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya. July 22 2011. Photo Brendan Bannon.

We act fast

We strive to help the people in greatest need, rather than the demands of funders or politicians

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The moment protesters take over the stage during the official opening ceremony of the 50th Union Conference on Lung Health on 30th October 2019

We speak out

We work to raise awareness and create debate about these crises through our policy of 'témoignage’

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On the way to Castor hospital, Bangui.
Half a million people have been displaced in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, fleeing the fighting that took place there in December between the self-defence groups called anti-Balaka (anti-machete) and the forces of the ex-Séléka. The UN estimates that the number of displaced people throughout CAR could be more than 900,000 people, in a country twice the size of France and with only 4.6 million inhabitants.
The fighting in Bangui caused at least a thousand deaths in December. Since then, MSF has treated almost 3,000 people wounded by grenades, gunshot or machetes. The medical organisation is also assisting people in different displaced camps in the city, such as at the airport (100,000 people), Boy Rabe (35,000) or Don Bosco (35,000). Humanitarian aid has been slow to get to the displaced people, especially in need of water and sanitation. While Christians have fled to the airport (protected by French troops) and religious centres, Muslims are regrouping in their own neighborhoods or leaving Bangui and the country in their thousands.

We're independent

At the core of MSF’s identity is a commitment to independence, neutrality and impartiality

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We are a global movement of over 51,000 people from over 160 countries. In 2023, more than 42,000 of our staff, from surgeons to warehouse managers, were hired locally from the places we support.