“Even today, the fighting continues near Lashkar-gah. Patients continue to arrive, a sign that they have now reopened the roads to allow the wounded to be transported. We have already brought 9 to our hospital, of which 5 are in a serious condition. Those who can are fleeing towards Kandahar in search of safety. It…

The fighting continues in Helmand and our Lashkar-gah Surgical Centre continues to receive injured patients. In just the last 24 hours, our surgeons have performed 43 operations. 283 operations since the beginning of October. Vesna, our hospital coordinator, writes: “The heaviest fighting is in Babaji, not far from Lashkar-gah. This morning, we were informed to…

“What are your plans now?” “I want to study” R. is 14 years old, and comes from Eritrea. He waits for me, seated, with his arms folded; I shake his hand, as adults do, and say hello. I ask him how he is doing. “Things are bad. My entire body hurts, but this does not…

“We would like to have done more, but we only succeeded in saving two of them.” T. takes a memo book and writes for me the names of the two children: R., four years old, and A, seven. He knew their family very well. It is 10 o’clock in the morning, and the sun has…

“It is evening, when we start to see the lights of the boats which gradually approach the port of Augusta, Sicily.” Fabrizio, one of our Sicily Support Team psychologists, explains that “the Clipper Hebe, a big commercial boat which flies the Norwegian flag, is transporting 221 migrants, among them 80 non-accompanied minors, 20 women, and the…

When we tell you about massive influxes of patients in a short period of time, usually it is because of events associated with war, such as news arriving from Afghanistan. However, we also see mass casualties in other countries in which we work. One example is in Sierra Leone. The cause there is frequent road…

“My head, legs, and back hurt. I cannot sleep because of the pain. I do not know where my family is, or how they are doing. I cannot contact them, because they do not have a telephone and are not on a social network. Even they if they were, I would have difficulty reaching them,…

Dejan calls us on Monday. He tells us about the two bombs that exploded near the Ministry of Defence, about the 24 patients who arrived at our hospital, about the 4 people who did not make it. The next morning, the staff of the Surgical Centre awoke to the windows of the building trembling: another…