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On April 13th 2012, Télécoms Sans Frontières deployed an emergency team to Niger, in the Tillabéri region, to support the action of the NGOs in the Malian refugee camps by providing satellite equipment.

In cooperation with the NGO Acted, Camp Manager, and in agreement with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), TSF is setting up in the camp of Abala a communication centre using satellite technology to provide secure Wifi connection for the whole of the humanitarian community on site.

April 3rd, 2012

In Niger, North of Niamey, Télécoms Sans Frontières is conducting an assessment mission of telecom needs in the refugee camps on the Malian border to prepare its imminent mission in the area.

Most of the refugees do not have any mean of communication with their family and have been unable to establish any contact with them since they arrival in Niger.

Kaikor village is cruelly lacking in communication networks

A few months ago, the Horn of Africa was hit by one of the most severe droughts in its history, after two seasons without any rain, causing shortage in agricultural outputs and massive loss of livestock. A state of famine was declared by the United Nations Organisation, and the humanitarian organisms, threatening the lives of 13 million people.

TSF deployment in Kaikor (Kenya), South Sudan border

TSF deployed from its international headquarters on February 15th in response to the category 3 Cyclone Giovanna which hit the eastern coast of the island, killing 26 people, affecting 663,000 and displacing 133,000 according to the BNGRC (National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management).

In coordination with the BNGRC, the TSF team assessed the telecom situation and identified the needs for telecommunications of NGOs, local authorities and populations after the cyclone in the towns of Moramanga, Ranomafana, Vatomandry, Antsampanana and Brickaville.

2011 started off with the Arab Spring and the domino effect of toppling totalitarian regimes. Citizens from Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Libya rose up. Some, like Egypt and Tunisia, undertook radical change immediately. Others underwent a prolonged conflict, for example in Libya.

In the nine months since the beginning of the Libyan uprising, TSF has been present on the ground, providing emergency telecommunications connections to affected populations and the NGOs working to help them.

Responding to the 3rd category cyclone Giovanna which swept Madagascar Island today, Télécoms Sans Frontières is dispatching an emergency team from its international headquarters.

TSF will arrive in Saint Denis de la Réunion before its immediate transfer to Madagascar. TSF experts are bringing with them all the satellite equipment necessary to establish 6 crisis centres for humanitarian workers and to open 12 phone lines for the affected population: broadband data transmission, itinerant telecommunication centre, satellite phone lines...

En collaboration avec l’Association Nationale des Scouts d’Haïti, TSF s’inscrit durablement dans le dispositif national de réponse à l’urgence.

Dans le cadre d’un accord de collaboration sur deux ans, TSF a débuté en novembre 2010 un programme de renforcement des capacités, au bénéfice de l’Association Nationale des Scouts d’Haïti (ANSH), dans le domaine des télécommunications d’urgence.

Breaking news (October 24th): The TSF regional base located on the Asian Institute of Technology’s campus (AIT) has been evacuated. TSF came back this weekend, thanks to a boat of the Army, to assess the equipment remaining in the office. Opposite, a TSF employee tries to enter our Bangkok offices.

More than 50 provinces are flooded.