Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Blanca Thiebaut and Montserrat Serra
The medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to fully support the families of Blanca Thiebaut and Montserrat Serra, two MSF employees who were abducted from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp while working to help Somali refugees in need. MSF once again states its anger and shock over this act of violence and demands their immediate release.
Montserrat and Blanca were abducted on October 13, 2011, from Dadaab’s Ifo 2 refugee camp, in northeastern Kenya, by armed men, while working on the construction of a hospital. Since then they have been held against their will in Somalia. MSF again strongly condemns this attack.
The families of Montserrat and Blanca express their pain and concern over the abduction and declare their absolute commitment to do what is possible for their release. Through MSF, they thank the media and other local, national, and international institutions for the caution they have shown over the past year with regard to the abduction, and request that they continue to exercise discretion.
MSF has maintained a continuous presence in Somalia since 1991 and currently runs 12 projects throughout the country. Thousands of Somalis have been displaced from their homes or have fled to neighboring countries due to intense violence, drought, malnutrition, and infectious diseases. The extreme level of insecurity poses a huge challenge to the provision of lifesaving care in many parts of Somalia. MSF teams also provide medical and humanitarian aid to thousands of Somali refugees in camps across the border in Ethiopia and Kenya.