Thursday, April 7

Patients are showing up with their prescriptions for antiretrovirals and tuberculosis drugs. We're starting to take care of them. In the end, the Licorne forces cancelled the convoy. The Japanese embassy was attacked last night and the Licorne soldiers had to get seven people out. Two pick-up trucks were also attacked at the French embassy. Our team based in Zone 4 left to come join us but they did an about-face when they came face-to-face with snipers and burned-out shells of cars in Adjame. We're hearing increasing numbers of accounts about bodies left in the street. No one is picking them up. Our MSF team is still not leaving the hospital, although a few more people are out in the street this morning. Nine wounded today, 75 hospitalized. There's still a patient who needs an amputation.

A little truck arrived from Bouaké with the anesthesia kit and solutions. Unfortunately, there are no narcotics inside (no valium or morphine) and only 10 vials of lidocaine. That's one day's supply. Our surgeon just learned that his family may have been robbed again… He's afraid and can't get through on the phone, so he borrowed mine to check on security where his wife lives. I sent a car of fighters to buy some baby formula and diapers for a baby who was abandoned at the hospital in late March. There are no more rules here. MSF's standard principles no longer apply. We're just trying to treat our patients, almost any way we can. At the end of March, we were comparing Abobo to Baghdad. Today, Abidjan resembles Mogadishu—chaos, multiple groups, clans, robberies. Terror and catastrophe for the people who live here. We are not seeing any light at the end of this tunnel and the stories people are telling us are worse and worse.