A map of Libya is spread out on a table in the Paris office of Doctors Without Borders (DWB). Mego Terzian, the head of this international organization’s French unit, studies the map closely. In his 20 years with the mission, he’s been almost everywhere in the world, but believes that the current events in the Middle East should concern us all.  

T.Y.: How did you launch your career in the humanitarian field?

M.T.: I first met the head of DWB Denis Gouzerh in Armenia when I was a student at the Yerevan Medical School. He asked me to help him with translation during a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh. I agreed.

In 1999 I worked at a children’s hospital in Yerevan. I had a strained relationship with my supervisors, who scolded me for treating patients for free – something that happened when I realized the mother of a child I examined was in a dire financial situation. In November 1999 DWB contacted me again and I interviewed with two managers from the Paris office. I told them that I’d like to go on a mission abroad. 

A month later I got a phone call from a recruiter who was assembling a team for an assignment in Sierra Leone, and she asked me to join for six months as a pediatrician. This was December 1999 and DWB just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Unlike in Karabakh, where I was local personnel distributing medicine to hospitals, in Sierra Leone I worked directly with the people who needed help. We had to make sure that medical centers in the countryside were working. There were several disease outbreaks: first we had measles, then hemorrhagic diarrhea… We had to start vaccinating and to create three quarantine centers. I learned a lot during that mission, including about severe malnutrition and other pathology – there was nothing like this in Armenia. With each new mission I acquired new field experience. In early March 2003, I joined the organization full time.

T.Y.: The organization has come a long way since 2003, and you’ve played a direct role in its development. Is it any easier to work for DWB today?

M.T.: Yes, a lot has changed since 1999. The organization used to be “fully French” and I was the only non-European going on missions. I was one of its first doctors — “local personnel offshoots,” as we like to say – who went on missions abroad. Today the organization is international: 38 percent of our coordinators are from Africa. A local staff member, who doesn’t speak French very well, was elected the association’s president three years ago during our General Assembly attended by 1,400 people. This is a big step forward in itself. 

T.Y.: The events currently unfolding in the Middle East and places around Great African Lakes seem catastrophic. What kind of work are you currently doing in Africa?

M.T.: Unfortunately, nothing has changed since the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. A number of our staff members are currently in Burundi, trying to better understand the scale of assistance we need to provide. They are talking to local authorities about opening a DWB mission in Burundi. We want to provide support to local doctors who are trying to implement “mobile surgery” practices. They are training general practitioners in rural areas on the basics of urgent surgical assistance, such as performing a caesarean section.

Simultaneously, we are doing a project on the border with Rwanda. Our goal is to open a medical center to treat malaria, which is becoming a serious threat in this region.

Classified sources are reporting mass killings in the country. Young people are dying every day, especially in the southern neighborhoods of Bujumbura. 

T.Y.: Does DWB work in zones controlled by ISIS?

M.T.: Yes, but it’s extremely difficult. In February 2014 we’ve had to leave ISIS-controlled territories (Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in Syria and the northeastern part of Aleppo). This happened after five of our local colleagues were abducted. We received guarantees of our safety, but the Jihadists didn’t keep their word, so we had to scale our work down and stop sending medical supplies to their hospitals. 

As far as I know, members of ISIS still have access to medicines at some of the medical centers. We even know that some Arabs from Kurdish-controlled territories, like Kobane, get treatment in Raqqa because it has good cardiologists and drugs. We have had no reports of severe malnutrition in these zones, but there are at least 15 Syrian villages occupied by the regular army, ISIS or some less radical group where malnutrition is a major concern.

All of these forces are enslaving people. I see it as colonization. Humanitarian aid gets siphoned off. Local Syrian organizations working in the field are not free to act. There are ISIS strongmen in each of them, deciding which population groups will get the aid. This contradicts our principles.

We tried to cooperate with the Syrian chapter of the Red Crescent in zones controlled by the government. We sent a delegation to start talks on an official presence in the country, but the talks failed. Thus we continue to work undercover in northern Syria, in the Idlib and Aleppo governorates where we manage two hospitals that are fully staffed by local personnel. We also support 27 medical centers in Homs and Hama.

T.Y.: What are the major challenges faced by DWB today?

M.T.: We are unable to work in countries with ongoing military conflicts. We are having a very difficult time in Yemen, because the level of danger is very high. So far we’ve been able to retain personnel in the majority of the country’s regions, both in the north and south, but the military jets of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition are bombing schools, hospitals, mosques and infrastructure objects with no regard for anyone’s life. 

We lost two of our local staff members in the north of the country, not to mention the patients who died behind the walls of the medical centers we support…Radical Islamist groups have been active in Yemen for years, and the majority of NGOs were forced to leave the territories they control. Today, DWB is the only organization with a presence in almost every region of the country.

It’s even more difficult in Syria; we are unable to fulfill our mission there. Basically, it’s a total fiasco. We’ve opened just one hospital and support several medical centers, but we can hardly believe that we are really helping residents in opposition-controlled territories. 

T.Y.: You are a member of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity Experts Panel. What does the Prize mean to you?

M.T: Just a few years ago, Armenia was seen as a developing country on the receiving end of humanitarian aid. Today, it’s creating many partnerships that promote growth and development. When the crisis in Syria began, we witnessed a great inflow of Syrian Armenians into Armenia, and today they play an important role in strengthening its economic prosperity. 

It’s a very positive sign that Armenians, such as Ruben Vardanyan, established a prize for achievements in the humanitarian sphere. It’s a very meaningful gesture on the part of Armenia to encourage both the person who takes risks to save lives and the organization that inspires him or her to do it. 

Back in the day, my ancestors ran away from the Turks. Many Armenians were welcomed in the Syrian desert, in Lebanon and further on — all the way to Marseilles. A century later it’s the Armenians’ turn to express their gratitude through setting up this prize. I think it’s very symbolic. We’ve stopped “lamenting” and can finally thank those who risked their lives to save and help others.  

T.Y.: What advice would you give people who do not want to stand idly by?

M.T.: You should follow the events in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter who we are — members of an international organization or regular citizens. We can’t stand back and watch the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. We should do everything possible to increase the number of rescue operations. As a representative of the humanitarian aid field, I see this as my principal task. As an Armenian, I can’t help but worry about the fates of Aleppo and Kamishli, where so many Armenians are barely surviving.