How can aid workers help war victims without falling prey to, or becoming complicit with, their persecutors?
Humanitarian organisations have an ambiguous relationship with the violence of war. Seeking to relieve its severity, they contribute to its continuation to varying degrees while subjecting themselves to becoming targets. This collection of studies explores the way aid workers attempt to “humanise” war and face the risk of becoming victims of or complicit in the war.
![Militaro-humanitaire, une confusion mortelle Un homme armé escorte MSF](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-05/MSF4909-armed-man-escorts-msf.jpg?itok=SNWXJYG7)
Military humanitarism: a deadly confusion
08/16/2004Fabrice Weissman reminds us that while the clarity of the humanitarian emblem is no guarantee of absolute safety, it is nevertheless an essential prerequisite to it.
![ces ONG qui appellent aux armes Entrée de l'hôpital de Man avec une pancarte signalant l'interdiction des armes](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-05/MSF2748-no-gun-hospital-of-man.jpg?h=38bd6518&itok=U9OGxpzy)
Humanitarian action and military intervention: Temptations and possibilities
04/28/2004Using the example of Liberia, Fabrice Weissman examines the public statements of NGOs and their positions with regard to denunciation and/or calls for international intervention.
![From Ethiopia to Chechnya book cover of From Ethiopia to Chechnya](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-06/MSF-cover-from-ethiopia-to-chechnya.jpg?h=c17778a5&itok=0YulbtLS)
From Ethiopia to Chechnya
04/01/2004For nearly two decades, François Jean practiced humanitarian action based on a deep, pragmatic desire to understand, constant self-questioning, and broad intellectual curiosity. It will be clear to anyone reading his collected works, From Ethiopia to Chechnya: Reflections on Humanitarian Action, 1988-1999, that his writings resonate with dilemmas we face today.
![Is independent humanitarian action over in Afghanistan? Deux voitures MSF sont garées devant une tente](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-05/MSF3165-msf-in-unhcr-compound.jpg?itok=eo5C0sZO)
Is independent humanitarian action over in Afghanistan?
09/01/2003This article questions the independence of humanitarian action in Afghanistan, at a time when aid initiatives from military forces blurs differences, and when NGOs financed mostly by institutional funding risk becoming mere "implementing partners" of an aid policy driven by a political agenda.
![A l’ombre des guerres justes Couverture du livre A l’ombre des guerres justes](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-06/MSF-cover-a-lombre-des-guerres-justes.jpg?h=22775e33&itok=2yPSWNn-)
In the Shadow of Just Wars
09/01/2003During the planning stages of military intervention in Iraq, humanitarian organizations were offered U.S. government funds to join the Coalition and operate uneder the umbrella of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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Civilians Under Fire
10/01/2001In the face of violence, how does a medical relief organization react and respond? This book is an account of one experience; it describes and analyzes the characteristics of one intervention: that of Médecins Sans Frontières in Congo Brazzaville in 1998-2000.
![Rwanda, politique de terreur, privilège d’impunité Un enfant fait la queue pour avoir de l'eau](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-05/MSF49246-kid-in-queue-for-water.jpg?h=e977d099&itok=LHxqoJil)
Terror and Impunity in Rwanda
08/01/2000Not having seen the genocidal drift of Hutu Power in 1994 coming, the international community grants Paul Kagame's RPF the impunity of victims. Yet such power also lends itself to criminal acts. The authors express their indignance that NGOs and international organisations - invoking the duty of remembrance - join in the endless evocation of the past that masks the political phenomena at the root of the current violence.
![Populations en danger 1995 Couverture du livre Populations en danger 1995](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-06/MSF-cover-populations-en-danger-1995.jpg?h=976070e2&itok=XDw-VQVY)
Populations in danger 1995
11/01/1995« Never again »: in the wake of the second World War, the terror caused by the Holocaust led the community of states to condemn genocide as a crime and to create a new international organization, the United Nations. And yet, half a century later, the international community did nothing to prevent the first undeniable genocide since that of the Jews: it let the massacre of the Rwandan Tutsis and merely sent humanitarian aid, even though it was nearly over.
![L’action humanitaire Réfugiés en Tanzanie - novembre 2016](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser/public/2017-05/MSF179617-tanzania_0.jpg?itok=yLD7x_dp)
Humanitarian aid
05/01/1994For the publication of the Dictionnaire d'Ethique et de philosophie morale, the former president of Médecins Sans Frontières, Rony Brauman, offers a definition of humanitarian aid.