A deadly airstrike on a hospital in Yemen prompted Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to fully withdraw from the country’s volatile north.
Isabelle Defourny, the medical charity’s head of operations, speaks to DPA about the decision.
DPA: What is your impression of the situation on the ground?
Defourny: The situation in Yemen in awful. The healthcare system is destroyed.
Access to medical treatment is extremely difficult. The cost of living is very high.
The fact that we are leaving will reduce access to medical treatment even further.
DPA: What are your next steps for the north of the country?
Defourny: We will deliver medicines to Yemeni staff and hospitals, provided they are willing to continue running medical services. We have reached a point where we can no longer see how we can continue providing humanitarian help in this bombarded region.
DPA: The Saudi-led military alliance wants to meet with MSF to find a common solution.
What do you say to that?
Defourny: We have met with the Saudi coalition twice, in February and in July.
They made assurances to us. We gave them the GPS co-ordinates of our hospitals.
We discussed the identification of our medical facilities. We noted all trips taken when our teams were on the move.
DPA: What now?
Defourny: We have not broken off the dialogue with the Saudi coalition; we are prepared to speak to them. We have several specific questions to ask.
We have no idea where the errors lie [regarding the most recent hospital strike]. We aren’t stopping permanently. We are interrupting our activities.
