In 2024, as crises unfolded worldwide, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams remained ready to deliver critical medical aid and humanitarian relief. Our teams navigated complex challenges like aid blockades, violence, and disease outbreaks, but continued to deliver aid to places that otherwise wouldn’t receive it.
This 2024 year in photos collection captures moments of resilience and hope. Each image is a testament to the care provided and lives saved by MSF teams over the past year.
In 2024, MSF teams responded to natural disasters and disease outbreaks, helped improve health care for people on the move, and provided urgently-needed malnutrition support, vaccinations, and more in over 70 countries around the world.
Throughout the year, violent conflicts continued to fuel humanitarian needs in places like Palestine, Sudan, Haiti, and Ukraine. These challenges were further compounded by global disease outbreaks like mpox in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), dengue in Honduras, and even the resurgence of polio in Gaza. Meanwhile, the climate emergency spurred devastating floods in places like Brazil, Chad, and Nigeria, exposing communities to heightened health risks and deepening the urgency of global action.
With each crisis that emerged or escalated, MSF teams continuously adapted operations to respond while maintaining critical regular activities and supporting health care in places where the needs are greatest. And around the world, our dedicated staff bore witness to extraordinary moments of strength, solidarity, and hope, even in the face of immense adversity.
Photographs have a unique power to document the urgent realities of crisis response, capturing the magnitude of situations that are often beyond words. Behind each photo is a story told through the lens of MSF staff and volunteers whose work exists alongside conflict, natural disasters, and public health crises.
Photos go beyond illustrating the work of MSF—they bring viewers face-to-face with our patients and staff and invite people to bear witness to the realities of our patients’ lives.
2024: The year in photos
Right now, our teams are bandaging war-wounded people in Gaza, treating malnourished children in Sudan, performing surgeries for injured patients in Haiti, and so much more. We invite you to look back through powerful images from 2024, capturing the lifesaving efforts made possible by the incredible generosity of our global community.
Photos of the wounds of war in Gaza
The health care system in Gaza has been completely decimated by the last year of war, making medical care increasingly inaccessible, even as the overwhelming needs grow. MSF-supported Nasser and Al-Aqsa hospitals have been overwhelmed with massive numbers of wounded patients arriving at the same time. Our teams continue to provide lifesaving aid and medical care despite the great risk and immense challenges. At Nasser Hospital, our teams responded to multiple mass casualty events while performing 25 to 30 deliveries in the maternity wards.
In this photo, Karam, 17, nearly died after his family's house was leveled by an Israeli airstrike, leaving him with severe burns to his face and body. He was able to medically evacuate Gaza and is now undergoing comprehensive reconstructive surgery and physiotherapy at the MSF hospital in Amman, Jordan. Thousands of sick and wounded Palestinians require specialized care unavailable in Gaza, yet many remain trapped, blocked from evacuation.
Read our latest update on Gaza here.
Photos of our work in Haiti
Escalating violence has ravaged Haiti, severely affecting the health system. MSF medical facilities were seriously under-supplied—to the point where we were in danger of having to interrupt patient care. But after a three-month disruption, we were able to restock our most urgently-needed health programs, delivering 80 tons of medical supplies.
In 2024 alone, our teams carried out 21,707 outpatient consultations and treated 8,449 patients with emergency needs—including 1,128 with gunshot wounds. We also admitted 81 severely burned patients to the Tabarre hospital.
After a devastating fuel truck explosion in Miragoâne, numerous injured individuals sought care at MSF facilities. In Tabarre, our emergency center specializes in treating severe burn injuries. Vednerson Pierre, pictured here, was among 16 people admitted to the hospital in the days following the explosion to receive critical treatment for extensive burns.
Photos of over a year of war in Sudan
It’s been over a year and a half since war erupted in Sudan, and people have been cut off from vital medical aid. In North Darfur, home to Zamzam camp, a catastrophic malnutrition crisis is growing every day. Right now, MSF is one of the few organizations still providing lifesaving care, including malnutrition treatment, in many parts of the country. Across Sudan, we treated 21,316 children for malnutrition and provided 13,981 pediatric consultations in the first half of 2024.
This photo shows an MSF team member measuring a child’s mid-upper arm circumference in Zamzam camp, North Darfur, where an MSF rapid nutrition and mortality assessment found alarming rates of malnutrition this year.
Photos of the human toll of war in Ukraine
After eight years of low-intensity conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces launched an all-out military assault in 2022, causing thousands of civilian casualties and extensive damage to energy and other key infrastructure, particularly in the country’s eastern regions. Many homes have been destroyed and public services severely disrupted, including health care, water, and power supplies, and millions have been displaced.
In addition to providing emergency treatment, our teams have developed rehabilitation projects, including care for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physiotherapy to cater to patients’ longer-term needs.
"Unfortunately, many hospitals in [the] Donetsk region are now destroyed, and people there can no longer receive care, so we transport patients to safer places where there are more doctors and more equipment,” says MSF staff member Diana Bilonozko. Here, she helps a patient into an ambulance after a dialysis procedure.
Read our latest update on Ukraine here.
Photos of devastating flooding and the climate crisis
The climate emergency is a public health crisis, and it’s increasingly impacting communities that are the least equipped to handle it. MSF sees every day how climate factors impact the health of communities around the world, from the increasing frequency of extreme weather events to violent land disputes caused by drought-withered farmland. We are committed to addressing the immediate medical and humanitarian needs of people affected by the climate emergency, and we are taking steps to cut our carbon emissions and promote environmental sustainability.
Every two weeks, our mobile clinic team in Old Fangak Country travel by boat throughout the most isolated villages, where communities have no access to health care. In recent years, extreme flooding caused by climate change has engulfed up to two-thirds of South Sudan. In Old Fangak, only mud dykes protect the town's thousands of inhabitants from submersion.
Read our latest update on the climate emergency here.
Photos: Helping migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border
There are more forcibly displaced people around the world today than at any other time in modern history. 117.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to violent conflict, natural disasters, and economic or political upheaval.
MSF provides medical humanitarian care to displaced people at every step of their journey, from treacherous migration routes to the inhumane detention centers where many end up once they reach their destination. We also bear witness and speak out against harmful government policies that shut out vulnerable displaced people.
In the town of La Venta, in Oaxaca state of southern Mexico, MSF staff share share information with migrants who have just arrived. The community involvement and health promotion team raises awareness about contraceptive methods, menstrual hygiene, sexual violence, and disease prevention.
Read our latest update on migration in the Americas here.
How you can help MSF provide humanitarian aid to people in need
As we near the end of 2024—a year defined by an increasing number of refugees and displaced families, rapidly spreading disease outbreaks, malnutrition, and escalating violent conflict—MSF is already preparing for what may come in 2025.
We can’t predict where the next crisis will be or the challenges we’ll face, but we can commit to this: Every second and every dollar will make a difference. Whether it’s responding to the mpox outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), bandaging the war-wounded patients in Gaza, or providing clean water in the wake of flooding in Bangladesh—MSF staff make every second count.
Make a gift that will save lives
Don’t miss this opportunity to help MSF continue our vital work in over 70 countries worldwide. Visit our Ways to Give page to discover how your generosity can create lasting change.
How you can help
Not everyone can treat patients in the field. But everyone can do something.
Some humanitarian crises make the headlines—others don’t. Unrestricted support from our donors allows us to mobilize quickly and efficiently to provide lifesaving medical care to the people who need it most, whether those needs are in the spotlight or not. And your donation is 100 percent tax-deductible.
