MSF President Christou Discusses Humanitarian Efforts in Ukraine, Art Auction

On Sunday 24 April 2022, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Luxembourg organised its first charity art auction in the presence of MSF's international President, Dr Christos Christou, with 41 artworks by nineteen Luxembourg artists, with the proceeds to benefit its emergency medical actions.

Chronicle.lu reached out to Dr Christos Christou for his comments on the MSF efforts in Ukraine and the art auction in Luxembourg.

Chronicle.lu: What are the current humanitarian efforts from MSF International in Ukraine?

Christos Christou: It was with a surprise that we had to evolve very quickly emergency activities in a new world in Ukraine. We were present in Ukraine since 2014, but the activity we had were addressing other types of needs of the population. When the war started, we had to deploy emergency teams and we are on a position today that we have more than a 130 people that they come from different parts of the world, next to more than 200 locally hired staff.

We are trying not only to assess the needs of each one of the places that, as you see in the news these days, are affected, but also to prepare those places that may be next in the war to provide trainings, for example; to ensure that they have enough medical supplies; and to look at the needs of those that can be more excluded or left behind, like vulnerable people or elder people.

We have difficulties to access those places that have been mostly affected, like Mariupol, one of the cities that has been hardly hit. The access is very difficult. We also have difficulties to understand what will be happening next. We do not have many entries for the supplies that we need to bring inside the country. You may have seen that from the Eastern-South there is no way to use the boats, the ships, the sea to bring supplies within the country. So we are using other entrances in the West.

So accessing those that they need us most is one of the main challenges. Bringing supplies in is another challenge, and also transferring people from places that have been affected, or will be affected soon, to others that can be safer it also not easy these days.

Chronicle.lu: Does the Russia-Ukraine conflict dilute other humanitarian efforts in other conflict zones where MSF is active?

Christos Christou: We know that these days the war in Ukraine has attracted the general interest, but I really glad to see how everyone wants to show their generosity, their solidarity and support to people seeking for safety or the refugees that come from Ukraine.

But it is important to remind that this is not the only crisis we have in the world and, directly for MSF there is no impact because we still have huge humanitarian projects in many other places, and we try very proportionally to distribute our resource to meet people's needs. But I am extremely worried about donor countries, about donors' money that might be completely shifted from other places to Ukraine, and other humanitarian crisis that they are ongoing for long now will be neglected, and that would be a real catastrophe.

Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria are the countries that are more at risk at the moment, just to name a few... And let us not just look at how can be directly affected by the shifting of the donations, but also on indirect ways. We are seeing also these days the huge geo-political shifts that will cause more complexities in several places in the world. For example, if Ukraine, or if the Russian Federation as we know is one of the biggest suppliers of crops and food products, we will be facing bigger challenges to ensure that those who need food supplies in other places in the world will have them.

The Russian Federation is also one of the biggest producers of yellow fever vaccines and, if there is a disruption there, this will cause serious problems in those places where not only MSF but also many other deploy massive vaccination campaigns.

And these are just a few examples to draw a picture about what may happen. Of course, it is not us, as MSF, to really analyse this, and we do not have all the data to do this analysis. However, what are doing now is expressing some of the concerns.

Chronicle.lu: Are similar charity art auctions being also planned by MSF in other EU / non-EU countries? If so, where?

Christos Christou: When it comes to the auction itself, of course we are experimenting new ways of bringing donors and supporters closer to what we call 'our mission', to 'our purpose'. And the auction, bringing art on the core of this relationship is a very interesting and quite innovative much promising way. It is the first time we have a charity art auction in Luxembourg. And one of the first times we try that in other sides of the world. We have a great support from people, so I sure it will work well.

Chronicle.lu: Will the artists (painters and sculptors) take a part of the proceedings or are they fully donating their art to MSF?

Christos Christou: We are on a 50/50 basis (half for the artist, half for MSF) - but some artists have left MSF more. As per the artworks, some of them has been created specially for this occasion, like the one of SUMO

Chronicle.lu: What are the main planned objectives / activities to be funded with the auction proceeds?

Christos Christou: Donations are not targeting a specific emergency context or project, but all the activities run by MSF in more than 70 countries across the world. MSF brings medical humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics or healthcare exclusion.

Detailed information on MSF's Emergency response to the Ukrainian conflict is available online via: https://msf.lu/fr/system/files/msf_in_ukraine_21_april_2022.pdf

Chronicle.lu asked MSF Luxembourg to confirm the amount of money raised to date from the charity art auction; however, they did not disclose the amount, explaining that funds are still being received.