True, but MSF has pulled out of areas they feel are too dangerous for their staff. It is perhaps significant to note that Kayla Mueller wasn’t with MSF. She was living in Turkey and working for another aid organization but took a day trip into Syria to accompany her boyfriend to a MSF site. I don’t know if she was following the safety precautions followed by MSF physicians. This is not meant to blame her for her abduction but simply to point out that she may have been in a more vulnerable position than average MSF volunteers would find themselves in.
There have been several places we have wanted to visit. Our guideline is the Sate Department Travel Advisory. If the SD is not recommending travel to a place, we don’t plan a trip there.
Now…having said that…trading and participating with a humanitarian organization is different than independently traveling as a tourist.
Yes, it’s important to remember that Kayla Mueller was not associated with and did not work for MSF. I for one am glad that there are well-trained experts in humanitarian assistance who are willing to go into danger zones and disaster areas. However, there are naive and idealistic people who rush to disaster areas to “help” for reasons that should bear greater scrutiny. Frankly, unless you have specialized skills and you’re well-trained and self-sufficient, you should avoid disaster areas and war zones because you will just get in the way. Think of all the well-meaning people who wanted to go to Haiti to “help,” but ended up being a big pain to all the professional aid providers because they had no idea what they were doing, they were not organized, and they needed someone else to provide food, water and protection for them. That kind of “help” is worse than staying home. Not every “humanitarian organization” is as tightly run as MSF and some of them function as balm for rich westerners’ consciences more than actual relief for the afflicted.
It’s interesting that everyone wants to talk about the incidents that get lots of press, but remain ignorant about risk in general. This becomes even more evident after some unfortunate thing does happen. Americans are shocked that the safety and support nets they are accustomed to having just aren’t there.
I agree with JustOndeDad. One of the secretaries that I’ve worked with in the early 80s went down to Mexico and she was jailed for two years. This is before all the drug problems we’ve heard in the news. You can’t assume all countries operated like USA. Even laws in the USA vary state by state.
I think it’s true that people don’t evaluate risk accurately. My 87-year-old mother thinks I’m in deadly danger whenever I fly anyplace. In fact, she’s in much deadlier danger every time she drives her car.
Sadly, I think it’s true that it has become more dangerous for American relief workers in the Middle East in recent years. Even so, the actual risk is still not extreme.
These comparisons that the same risk of danger exists by going to the movies or to the mall are simply not persuasive. Millions of people have gone to the theater for decades without being shot at. Whereas the risk of being kidnapped, raped and tortured then married off to someone against your will simply by virtue of the fact that you are an American does not exist when you attend a movie!
I respect Kayla Mueller’s efforts and those of the DWB and its mission, however, I believe that only military trained personnel should go into ISIS or high level threat zones. You can’t convince me
Otherwise.
I never understood the appeal of going on vacation to a country where its citizens are spilling over the border en mass to get out.
My staff clerk is Syrian and she wouldn’t go there even to visit. It’s deplorable what they (ISIS) do to young women that they capture. Their treatment of women in the name of their twisted beliefs is frightenening and tragic. I am angered after watching the videos of those subhuman ISIS thugs referring to us stupid Americans. However, I simply don’t agree with the policy of allowing American civilians into that environment when there are other, safer remedies. I acknowledge the need fo send aid where it’s most needed but let’s leave that to the people trained in military defense tactics and not civilians that are only equipped with their good hearts.
Uh, slightly eating my words regarding Bangkok till they capture the bomber. I was at that intersection just last year and a friend lives nearby. She walked home on Monday, and was seriously shaken as other days of the week, she passes through that intersection, on the way home, at that time. Serious and awful, though I can think of things that have happened on American soil that are equally horrible.
In 1980 I was stuck in Bologna when the bus for the student tour I was on died on us. We spent 4 hours in the 2nd class waiting room of the train station, joking about how nothing ever happens in Bologna. 3 days later a bomb left in that waiting room exploded, killing 85 people and wounding over 200.
On the other hand, a few years ago my husband finished the Boston marathon at the 4:14 mark, and high fived people along the left side as he came in. That was the side on which the 2013 bombs exploded at just shy of 4:10.
There but for the grace of God… (says the atheist)