Harrowing stories from patients being evacuated on Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) medical referral train show that the war in Ukraine is being conducted with an outrageous lack of consideration for civilian protection. 

In Ukraine, people escaping shelling, living with war wounds, or worrying about their loved ones in conflict zones usually don’t consider their mental health, say MSF psychologists. As a result, the psychological consequences of the current conflict can seem invisible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

After 100 days of the war in Ukraine, our mental health teams across the country are raising the alarm on the worrying psychological symptoms they are seeing.

Medical team leader Jessa Pontevedra, a nurse from Hamilton, speaks to TV NZ Breakfast's Indira Stewart about her time working as part of Medecins Sans Frontieres' medical response to the Ukraine emergency.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country, has been severely affected by the Russian offensive. While many fled the conflict, those who stayed have taken refuge in underground stations to escape the incessant bombing.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are offering primary healthcare consultations in several stations. 

“The severity, scale and speed of the war in Ukraine have created simply enormous needs and suffering,” says Dr Joanne Liu, an experienced paediatrician and member of MSF’s emergency response team who is just back from Ukraine.

On the morning of Friday 1 April, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) finalised our first medical train transfer of patients in Ukraine.

Nine patients in serious but stable condition were transferred from a hospital in Zaporizhzhia, in the southeast of the country, to major referral hospitals in Lviv, on a dedicated medical 2-carriage train that MSF has developed together with the Ukrainian Railways. The patients were accompanied by a team of nine MSF medical staff. 

Sasha, a long-time staff member of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from Mariupol, Ukraine, describes life in the city as it was encircled and bombarded by Russian forces. For security reasons, he is using only his first name.

Aleksandr Burmin (name changed) is an MSF staff member in Ukraine. Like so many other Ukrainians, the conflict has forced Aleksandr to flee his home, and is now internally displaced within the country.

In the besieged city of Mariupol, thousands of people including MSF staff and families remain cut off from the world. Laurent Ligozat, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Ukraine, shares his concerns about the safety of civilians in the city. 

Carla Melki, emergency coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has just returned from the port city of Odessa in southern Ukraine. There she was part of an MSF team that has been assessing the situation in order to help plan our activities in response to the war in the country.

From Moldova, a neighbouring country to which refugees are escaping, she explains the fears the Russian offensive is causing and the priorities for MSF’s intervention.