MSF Diary: A Week in Fighting Rages in Abidjan

During a week of intense violence that preceded the arrest of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo on April 11, the MSF team working at the Abobo Sud Hospital in northern Abidjan was isolated and unable to obtain additional supplies from the outside. Delphine Chedorge, coordinator of the MSF team in Abobo Sud, kept a diary in which she describes the teams' daily life during this tense period. Some information and facts have been changed or deleted in the interest of security, confidentiality, and comprehension, but the essence of her diary is presented in the following blog articles.

Groups mentioned are: Forces Nouvelles—Ivorian rebel forces; the United Nations Operation in Ivory Coast (UNOCI); and the French "Operation Licorne" forces, which are supporting the UN peacekeepers.

Delphine's entries, minimally abridged and edited, illustrate some of the dilemmas and difficulties the team experienced, recounting, for example, how the team had to rely on armed forces in order to move—an extremely unusual measure for MSF—and how they had to hide the wounded.