Niger coup: all MSF's medical and humanitarian activity continues

Present in the country for the first time since 1985, MSF is responding to the significant medical needs caused by conflict, population displacement, food insecurity, child malnutrition and epidemics. To carry out its projects, the NGO has a budget of 42.6 million euros and will have 1,485 employees in 2022 (full-time equivalent), including 150 international staff.

Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali share a border region in the central Sahel where state and non-state groups operate against a backdrop of high levels of poverty, climate change, rapid population growth, and increased competition for dwindling resources.

Southeastern Niger is part of the Lake Chad Basin, where violence that began in Nigeria in 2009 spread. The region was already extremely vulnerable due to social inequalities, poverty, poor infrastructure and recurrent droughts.

Highlights of MSF activity in Niger in 2022

In 2022, our teams carried out mass vaccination campaigns, distributed drinking water and relief items, such as hygiene and cooking kits, constructed shelters, and ran mobile clinics for displaced people in Diffa and Tillabéri regions.

In the second half of the year, Niger was hit by devastating floods, which affected hundreds of thousands of people. As well as running mobile clinics and distributing relief items to displaced people, we helped boost bed capacity in Niamey regional hospital.

We also supported the health authorities’ responses to outbreaks of measles and meningitis in Zinder, Diffa and Tahoua regions. During the peak malaria period, due to the exceptionally high number of patients requiring inpatient care in Magaria, we constructed two observation rooms in Tinkim and Yékoua health centres.

In Madarounfa district, we provide care for children with sickle cell disease, which includes vaccinations, antibiotics to prevent and treat infections, pain medications and blood transfusions. In 2022, to better prevent and manage severe complications of the disease, we introduced treatment with hydroxyurea, a drug listed by the World Health Organization as essential for haemoglobin diseases in children but still difficult to access in Niger.

In addition, we offered medical and nutrition care to children with malnutrition, malaria and other childhood diseases in Madarounfa hospital and five health areas in Maradi. As a result of our partnership with the health authorities and the World Food Programme, dedicated to treating children with moderate acute malnutrition, the number of hospital admissions for malnutrition was the lowest in four years.

The two-way flow of migrants over the Niger-Algeria border continued unabated in 2022. Thousands were deported by the Algerian authorities and stranded in the desert. MSF denounced the inhumane treatment of migrants expelled from Algeria and Libya, and called on authorities to take immediate measures to respect human dignity in border control.