Around one-third of the patients who receive medical aid from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are people caught in armed conflict. Armed conflict causes injury, displacement, sexual and gender-based violence, and death, but it also continues to impact people’s lives and health long after the fighting stops. Many people living through wars are faced with an impossible choice: Flee their homes or try to survive the fighting.
Conflict disrupts every aspect of daily life, jeopardizing access to even the most basic needs, like food and medical care. MSF provides lifesaving medical care in conflict zones around the world—from Gaza to Ukraine to South Sudan and many more—treating the people impacted by the violence and providing support and capacity to local health care providers and to facilities that have been fractured or overburdened by war.