Main description:

The humanitarian organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres ("Doctors Without Borders") delivers emergency aid to victims of armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, and those who lack reliable health care. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses, and other professionals join locally-hired staff to provide medical aid in more than eighty countries and in particular Biafra, Angola, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and Indian Ocean Tsunami. This book follows these volunteer doctors as they risk their health and lives to treat patients in desperate need. Combining engaging text with dramatic colour photographs from around the world, "Hope in Hell" examines the lives of individual Medecins Sans Frontieres volunteer medical professionals. This is a fascinating and often harrowing account of the men and women who struggle to improve the lives of people in desperate need. The new material in the updated text includes their efforts after the Asian Tsunami, further developments in Afghanistan, and the Sudan and the controversial lawsuit by the Dutch government to recover the Arjan Erkel ransom payment.