Doctors Worldwide Turkey has launched a new relief operation in Niger where successive droughts for the past 2 years combined with increasing insecurity in the Sahel region, especially in Mali, are pushing families to the brink. According to UN experts, some 15 million people are directly affected in the Sahel region. In Niger, more than 5 million people (35% of the population) are already facing food shortages.

As part of the Turkish mobilization for Somalia, Doctors Worldwide Turkey (DWWT) has launched a multifaceted operation including both short term projects to provide emergency relief assistance and rehabilitation projects to improve medical care. Amongst these projects, the construction of our Shifa Hospital has been the most challenging and we are very proud to be able to open it in due time. To achieve this goal, DWWT has closely collaborated with Medical Park. The opening ceremony of our Shifa hospital was held on March 6th in presence of Bekir Bozdağ, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, Dr.

From January 9th to January 12th, Doctors worldwide Turkey sent a team of four specialized paediatric surgeons and urologists in order to implement a paediatric surgical camp within Sayyidah Fatimah hospital. This project is part of the wider operation “Life for Africa” initiated in July 2011 as a comprehensive approach dedicated to the Horn of Africa Crisis.

Sayyida Fatimah Hospital is located in Mlaleo-Kisauni, Mombasa in Kenya. It is currently run by Iqra Charitable Society which has its headquarters in Jeddah and is also registered in Kenya

As a consequence to the popular movement initiated against the government in Yemen, there have been an increasing number of civilian deaths and many heavy wounded people need urgent medical care. In this country we have been witnessing the longest process within the “Arab Spring”. Indeed, launched at the end of January 2011, the popular movement protesting against Saleh’s government is about to come to a conclusion after one year of ongoing demonstrations. So far this internal conflict has caused approximately 1200 deaths and around 3000 civilians have been severely injured.

In the first hours following the October 23 earthquake in the Van region of Turkey, Doctors Worldwide Turkey (DWWT) reacted immediately and deployed its Search and Rescue team composed of 31 volunteers who worked round the clock for 4 days.

Subsequent to the search and rescue phase we implemented an integrated medical support operation to meet the needs of the survivors. All our projects have been designed according to the Earthquake Crisis Centre’s plan of action to optimize efficiency and to coordinate actions with other organizations involved.

Doctors Worldwide, a UK based medical relief charity, has opened up a hospital in Peer Sabak, Nowshera District, to provide medical care for an estimated 30,000 population affected by the devastating floods.

Nowshera's hospitals have been flooded and are unable to function since the floods started over a week ago. Further heavy rainfall is expected in the area today, hampering relief work.

"Doctors Worldwide has identified a building in Nowshera District that we are using as a hospital. The nearest hospital is 22km away and inaccessible due to the damage to roads and survivors

Doctors Worldwide-Turkey with two other NGOs sent 43 tonnes of medicine and medical supplies inside Gaza yesterday. 2 Lorries with medical supplies crossed Rafah border crossing yesterday inside Gaza.

So far more than 500 people died and more than 2500 people injured most of them are civilians as a result of Israel's air and ground assault towards Gaza. Hospitals cannot cope the scale of injured people. Medical supplies are very scarce, there is no electricity and fuel make the job impossible. In some cases doctors operate

There have been cholera outbreaks in some parts of Katanga province since September. Local medical authorities and humanitarian organizations started to send medical teams in order to control the outbreak. DWW with its partner RADEM is working with the local authorities. DWW donated 5000 litres of saline to help them. DWW team have arrived to Malemba Nkulu region with salines. They are treating patients at tent hospitals. DWW also building two maternities in this region to improve the healthcare infrastructure.

DWW assessment team has returned from Niger. Below are the summary points from their report.

Niger 's poor health indicators can be linked directly to extreme poverty.

- There is a lot of scope of initiating programmes in the health sector.

- Maternal and Child health are areas of particular concern.

- Bureaucratic obstacles in setting up projects are limited.

- There are few local NGOs that would have the capacity to work with international partners in implementing programmes.

- A specialist Obstetrics and Gynaecology