Fabrice Weissman

Interview with Michaël Neuman and Fabrice Weissman, research directors at Crash. On Wednesday 28 September, MSF is invited to attend a UN Security Council briefing on resolution 2286, adopted in May 2016, which strongly condemns attacks against medical personnel and establishments in conflict situations.

In recent years, fear-mongering reports based on hard data have been describing a world of ever-increasing danger for aid workers. The book "Saving lives and staying alive" explores this observation and compares it with MSF's experience of working in particularly dangerous regions.

On June 17, 2016,MSF announced that it will no longer accept funds from the European Union and Member States, as a sign of protest against the closure of European borders to migrants and asylum seekers.

We welcome Abby Stoddard, Katherine Haver and Adele Harmer's response to our critical article on the production and the use of security data in the humanitarian sector and to our book in general. In a field that has been very much lacking debate, if not controversies, we're extremely glad to see a various range of readers engaging in the discussion. 

Since the 1990s and the rise of conflicts in West Africa, Somalia, Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia and Africa's Great Lakes region, humanitarian organisations have been warning of greater insecurity for their staff. These observations are bolstered by surveys aimed at objectively quantifying violence against humanitarian workers.

When MSF nurse Chantal Kaghoma regained her freedom in August 2014 after being held hostage for thirteen months by rebel group ADF in the DRC, she said, “While I was in prison with all the other hostages, I had lost all faith in everyone"

This article is an English translation of an interview of Fabrice Weissman about the State of the Humanitarian Sector, in Revue Internationale et Stratégique (n°98, 2015/2) published by the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques

Syria is certainly the most deadly conflict in the world today and the most underserved in terms of international humanitarian assistance. Exposed to violence and lack of essential services, millions of Syrians, living under the authority of opposition groups, have almost no access to international humanitarian relief.