Contro la guerra, sempre.

EMERGENCY progetta, costruisce e gestisce ospedali, offrendo cure efficaci e umane a chi ne ha bisogno.

In primo piano

Updates From Sudan28 Agosto 2026 In Port Sudan, Childhood Anaemia Reveals the Hidden Impact of War28 Agosto 2026 Life Support Search and Rescue Updates20 Agosto 2026 48 SURVIVORS AND 7 BODIES DISEMBARKED FROM LIFE SUPPORT IN BARI20 Agosto 2026

Essere curati è un diritto di tutti. Senza discriminazioni.

EMERGENCY è un’associazione italiana indipendente e neutrale, nata nel 1994 per offrire cure medico-chirurgiche gratuite e di elevata qualità alle vittime delle guerre, delle mine antiuomo e della povertà.

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Ukraine – 30 Agosto 2024

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Gaza Strip – 27 Agosto 2024

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La storia di Kabul Surgical Hospital Receives 35 Patients Following Explosion in Dasht-e-Barchi

“On Monday 17th August, EMERGENCY’s Kabul Surgical Centre admitted 35 patients following an incident involving an explosion at a school in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood. The Mass Casualty Protocol was activated. The patients were all young children between the age of 10 and 14, and they were reportedly leaving the school when the explosion happened. “At […]”

EMERGENCY’S SAR VESSEL RESCUES A BOAT IN DISTRESS IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS WITHIN THE LIBYAN SAR ZONE.

57 PEOPLE BROUGHT ON BOARD, INCLUDING TWO IN SERIOUS MEDICAL CONDITION AND SEVEN WHO HAD DIED DURING THE CROSSING.

AN URGENT MEDEVAC HAS BEEN REQUESTED FOR THE TWO PEOPLE IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

EMERGENCY REQUESTED A NEARBY PLACE OF SAFETY TO BE ALLOCATED TO PREVENT FURTHER SUFFERING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN RESCUED.

At 8:07am this morning, Monday 17 August, EMERGENCY’s search and rescue vessel Life Support completed a rescue operation involving 57 people. The double-deck wooden boat was first sighted at 6am and rescued in international waters within the Libyan SAR zone.

“At 6.00am, we identified two vessels on radar and then from the bridge using binoculars. As we drew closer, we saw an overcrowded wooden boat and a Libyan patrol boat that was approaching and began heading towards our vessel. A mile away, we contacted them to inform them that the rescue operation was already underway: the Libyan vessel remained on standby to monitor the operation for its entire duration”, explains Jonathan Nanì La Terra, head of EMERGENCY’s Life Support mission.

“Halfway through the rescue, our team noticed nine people lying on the deck, where other survivors had carried them after retrieving them from the hold, in which they had spent the entire journey. For seven of them, there was nothing that could be done; two of them are in a critical condition due to suffocation.”

The survivors reported that they had set off at dawn on 16 August from Zuwara and are originally from Somalia and Egypt.

A total of 50 people were rescued: 45 men and 5 women. Among them are 29 unaccompanied foreign minors: 26 boys and 3 girls.

Nine of the rescued people require medical assistance. Two remain in critical condition due to suffocation, and the crew of Life Support has requested an urgent MedEvac from the relevant authorities, which is now on its way.

As the survivors are already exhausted after a harrowing journey, EMERGENCY urged the relevant authorities to assign a nearby Place of Safety (POS) to prevent further suffering. The assigned POS is Bari.

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Five years after the withdrawal of international forces and the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan’s humanitarian, economic and health crises continue to worsen.

The economic recession has deepened amid escalating regional tensions. Regional conflicts have disrupted some of the country’s main trade routes, affecting the supply, availability and cost of essential goods, including food and medicine.

Together with frequent natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, rising urban violence and violations of women and girls’ rights, immense pressure is impacting an already fragile society.

The Numbers Behind an Underfunded Crisis

→ 21.9 million people need humanitarian aid, half of whom are women and girls

→ 7.4 million Afghans are experiencing severe food insecurity, equivalent to one-third of the entire population

Data: OCHA

International funding for Afghanistan has fallen sharply, with 445 healthcare facilities forced to close or suspend operations due to funding shortfalls in 2025, depriving more than 3 million people of healthcare. Funding cuts affecting 206 of these facilities were directly linked to the January 2025 freeze on USAID funding.

The 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan received just 41% of the funding required, placing further pressure on an already fragmented health system and limiting access to essential healthcare services.

5 Years On: The Situation in Kabul

Violent injuries appear to be increasing, with admissions following terrorist attacks, border clashes, shootings, explosive remnants of war and other violent incidents.

In the first six months of 2026, 70% of patients admitted for trauma care at EMERGENCY’s Kabul Surgical Centre were injured as a result of violence, compared to around two-thirds of patients in 2025. In both the Kabul and Lashkar-Gah hospitals, there has been an increase in serious cases and deaths on arrival, partly due to delays in reaching medical facilities.

5 Years On: The Situation in Lashkar-Gah (Helmand)

In Helmand province, once a hub of fighting, EMERGENCY’s Surgical Centre now mainly treats civilian trauma cases, with children under 14 making up more than 50% of all admissions.

Many of our patients arrive in very serious condition because there is no functioning network of local services, such as ambulances or primary healthcare facilities, to allow them to reach a hospital quickly. Instead, they travel by whatever means are available, often at great personal expense, and arrive with complications that can require life-changing procedures, including limb amputation.

5 years on: the situation in Anabah (Panjshir Valley)

In the Panjshir Valley, the consequences of restrictions imposed on women and girls are evident. Over the past five years, increasing restrictions on education, employment, and participation in public life have continued to have significant repercussions, including on the healthcare system.

Across EMERGENCY’s facilities, more than half of women (54%) arrived for a first antenatal check in their second or third trimester. Just 11% were able to attend the recommended four antenatal visits. EMERGENCY’s Anabah Maternity Centre continues to provide essential care to mothers and babies, many of whom are arriving in conditions of grave risk to their own lives as well as their babies’.

New report ‘Safe Birth, Trusted Care’ to be released in September

Over the last five years, EMERGENCY has been conducting analyses on the everyday and systemic barriers preventing Afghans from accessing care, including barriers to maternal and newborn health services identified in the upcoming report, ‘Safe Birth, Trusted Care’.

Through in-depth focus groups, questionnaires and health facility data collected across multiple regions, the report provides a timely new analysis of the difficulties faced every day by women and their families during pregnancy and childbirth in Afghanistan, from the perspectives of Afghans themselves.

A decline in the number of women healthcare workers, particularly midwives and gynaecologists, due to bans on studying at university and specialising, impacts the quality and timeliness of care, and threatens the sustainability of the future health workforce.

For women and girls, access to women health professionals is essential; yet among the 18 primary healthcare facilities assessed in EMERGENCY’s upcoming report, only one had a woman doctor on staff.

EMERGENCY continues to train local healthcare workers in Afghanistan, including women.

What does the future hold for Afghanistan?

In August 2021, we made a deliberate choice to remain in Afghanistan. We stayed because people continue to need free, high-quality healthcare. And because they deserve to know they have not been forgotten.

For more than 20 years, our hospitals have borne witness throughout the country’s history without ever closing their doors.

We call on the international community to resume serious discussions about the crisis in Afghanistan; we call for ongoing support and investment in the healthcare sector. Afghans need to be heard, but above all they need concrete tools to achieve a genuine peace.

We cannot abandon Afghanistan.

OUR PROJECTS IN AFGHANISTAN

EMERGENCY in Afghanistan:

→ The Kabul Surgical Centre

→ The Lashkar-Gah Surgical Centre (Helmand)

→ The Anabah Surgical-Paediatric Centre, and the Anabah Maternity Centre (Panjshir Valley)

→ A network of more than 30 First Aid Posts and Primary Healthcare Centres

Since 1999, we have treated more than 8.5 million people in a country that today has a population of more than 48 million.

OUR PROJECTS IN AFGHANISTAN

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When a child in Burundi needs highly specialised surgery, many families have few options. Specialist paediatric surgical services remain limited, leaving some children unable to access the care they need.

Through its Regional Programme, EMERGENCY is helping bridge that gap. The Programme enables children requiring complex surgery to receive specialist care completely free of charge at EMERGENCY’s Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe, Uganda, while working with local partners to strengthen healthcare systems and expand access to care closer to home.

In July, EMERGENCY carried out its seventh paediatric medical mission to Burundi in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health, local health organisation Maison du Bon Samaritain and local health institutions. Across clinics in Gitega and Bujumbura, almost 150 children were assessed. 60 children were referred to the Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe, where they will receive further evaluation and, where needed, specialist surgery.

“In Burundi, we have fewer than four paediatric surgeons, and accessing them is an immense challenge,” explained Dr Niyokwizigirwa Bridget, Deputy Hospital Director at the Umugiraneza Polyclinic, Kirundi translator, and EMERGENCY’s medical focal person in Gitega. “Even the initial consultation fee is unaffordable, let alone the surgery itself. Those who manage to raise money for a consultation must travel all the way to the capital city of Bujumbura. A private hospital here does offer paediatric surgery, but the cost exceeds 10,000,000 Burundian francs – a sum completely out of reach for many.”

Together with local partners, EMERGENCY’s multidisciplinary team conducted follow-up appointments for children who had previously undergone surgery in Entebbe while also screening new patients requiring specialist care.

“It has been profoundly rewarding to witness the remarkable recovery of our post-operative patients, many of whom are now thriving,” said Dr John Yiga, lead paediatric surgeon in the EMERGENCY team.

Alongside clinical activities, EMERGENCY met with local health authorities, organisations and academic institutions to strengthen long-term collaboration around specialist paediatric care and medical training.

With a shared commitment to improving access to high-quality specialised care for Burundian children, the impact is clear: thanks to the Regional Programme, hundreds of Burundians have undergone surgery at EMERGENCY’s specialist facilties, including 116 cardiac patients at the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Sudan, and 210 paediatric patients at the Children’s Surgical Hospital in Uganda.

For families returning to the clinics, the visit was also an opportunity to celebrate recovery.

Among them was 13-year-old Justice, who returned for follow-up after receiving surgery at EMERGENCY’s Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe.

“Before Justice received treatment, every day was difficult,” said her mother, Fanny. “Today, she is doing so much better. She goes to school with confidence, plays with her friends again, and the stigma that once surrounded her has disappeared.”

The Regional Programme extends beyond surgery. Through regular medical screening missions, follow-up care and partnerships with national institutions, EMERGENCY is helping ensure that children continue to receive care after returning home, while strengthening access to specialised paediatric services across the region.

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Sudan – 28 Agosto 2026

Kabul Surgical Hospital Receives 35 Patients Following Explosion in Dasht-e-Barchi

17 Agosto 2026

Life Support | Boat in Distress Rescued in International Waters in Libyan SAR Zone

Eventi in evidenza

Afghanistan – 12 Agosto 2026

Afghanistan: Five years on from August 2021

10 Agosto 2026

EMERGENCY’s Screening Mission in Burundi to Expand Access to Specialised Paediatric Care

3 Agosto 2026

Life Support | 28 Rescued People Disembark in Ortona, Abruzzo

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Primary Healthcare for Remote Communities in Ukraine

Healthcare Support for the People of Gaza

In Port Sudan, Childhood Anaemia Reveals the Hidden Impact of War

Life Support Search and Rescue Updates

48 SURVIVORS AND 7 BODIES DISEMBARKED FROM LIFE SUPPORT IN BARI

Kabul Surgical Hospital Receives 35 Patients Following Explosion in Dasht-e-Barchi

Life Support | Boat in Distress Rescued in International Waters in Libyan SAR Zone

Afghanistan: Five years on from August 2021

EMERGENCY’s Screening Mission in Burundi to Expand Access to Specialised Paediatric Care

Life Support | 28 Rescued People Disembark in Ortona, Abruzzo

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Contro la guerra, sempre.

In primo piano

Essere curati è un diritto di tutti. Senza discriminazioni.

Scopri dove siamo

Dove operiamo

Cosa facciamo

Primary Healthcare for Remote Communities in Ukraine

Healthcare Support for the People of Gaza

Testimonianze

Dal blog

In Port Sudan, Childhood Anaemia Reveals the Hidden Impact of War

Life Support Search and Rescue Updates

48 SURVIVORS AND 7 BODIES DISEMBARKED FROM LIFE SUPPORT IN BARI

Kabul Surgical Hospital Receives 35 Patients Following Explosion in Dasht-e-Barchi

Life Support | Boat in Distress Rescued in International Waters in Libyan SAR Zone

Eventi in evidenza

Afghanistan: Five years on from August 2021

EMERGENCY’s Screening Mission in Burundi to Expand Access to Specialised Paediatric Care

Life Support | 28 Rescued People Disembark in Ortona, Abruzzo

Aiutaci a fare la differenza

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