Trapped in Libya by intermittent fighting, nurses face threats to their physical, emotional, and even financial safety.

We sat down with Fatimata Touré to find out what it’s like to be an International Woman of Courage, how the award will change her life, and whether reconciliation is possible in war-battered northern Mali.

In Karama Has No Walls, we see health workers risk their lives to care for the wounded. It happens more often than you might think.

When Islamist militants came to town, Dr. Ibrahim Maiga had no choice but to make a deal.

Mali is currently experiencing the most severe crisis of its existence.

Last week, NPR ran a story that made me cringe, describing a major humanitarian group’s decision to stop treating patients from detention centers in Misrata, Libya. According to the report, “torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation.”

Despite firm standards rooted in the Geneva Conventions to protect health facilities, health workers, and the patients served during armed conflict, and to enable health professionals to act consistently with their ethical obligations, assaults on and interference with health functions are all too common in war.

Civil unrest is spreading quicker than a pandemic across the Middle East and North Africa. How will these events affect people’s health and the health systems in these countries?