Doctors Without Borders Organization

Volunteer medical workers braved a hail of gunfire Saturday to evacuate more than 100 people seriously wounded in the siege of Vukovar, which has been sealed off from the rest of Croatia and pounded by Serbian and federal army artillery for more than a month. Two European nurses from the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders were badly injured during the relief effort when one truck of the 12-vehicle rescue convoy drove over a mine, the Tanjug news agency reported.

Three foreign staff members of Doctors Without Borders were freed two days after they were abducted in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the Italian Foreign Ministry said Friday. An official of the aid organization's Belgian branch, for which the three work, Erwin Van't Land, also said the group had been told by the kidnappers and by Sudanese authorities that the abductees had been released. "But we have not been able to talk to them ourselves. We need our own independent confirmation," he said.

Despite a slight letup in fighting Sunday, Western medical volunteers decided that conditions around the besieged city of Vukovar remained too dangerous to chance a second mercy mission to evacuate wounded from the front lines of Yugoslavia's civil war. The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders managed after a harrowing 13-hour journey through the Serbian-Croatian war zone to rescue 109 seriously injured patients from Vukovar's shattered hospital Saturday.

Something remarkable happened this year at a clinic for malnourished infants in this West Darfur village: It ran out of patients. And physicians at the Doctors Without Borders clinic haven't seen a single gunshot wound since last year. Now they're thinking about closing down because there is a hospital next door run by another aid agency, and a third center is under construction. "It's getting a bit crowded here," said Sewnet Mekonnen, the clinic's field coordinator.

Doctors Without Borders, the gutsy and media-wise volunteer group that rushes medical and humanitarian succor to victims of war and disaster worldwide, on Friday was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. Pioneer of a controversial approach to humanitarian activism, the organization often simply referred to as "the French doctors" insists on its right to act independently of governments and its moral duty to boldly speak out about the plight of the people it helps.

RUSSIA * Gunmen in southern Russia kidnapped a Dutch leader of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in the second abduction of an aid worker in the troubled North Caucasus region since July, officials said. Arjan Erkel, head of the medical aid group's mission in Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya, was taken late Monday outside Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, police said.

Nobel Prize-winning relief agency Doctors Without Borders announced that it would withdraw from Afghanistan because of the killing of five of its staff and the risk of further attacks. The group also said it was pulling out because it was unhappy with a government investigation of the June 2 deaths and with the "co-optation of humanitarian aid" by U.S.-led forces there "for military and political motives."

The U.S. aid worker who spent nearly a month in captivity in Russia's separatist republic of Chechnya provided an account of his release Thursday that sharply contradicted the official Russian version. Kenneth Gluck, 39, who directed the Chechnya relief program of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid group Doctors Without Borders, declined to speculate as to who may have been behind his abduction.

The aid agency Doctors Without Borders evacuated its eight foreign staff members from a southern Somali port Wednesday after a British staff member was briefly kidnaped. The Briton, Tim Boucher, was freed after two hours, but he and other agency workers said they expected all expatriate aid workers to leave Kismayu by the end of the month. They told a news conference in Nairobi it is possible widespread fighting will erupt in Kismayu because of the withdrawal of 1,200 Indian U.N.

AS someone who travels chiefly for pleasure, I sometimes feel guilty that I'm living off the fat of the land and contributing virtually nothing in return. Far better to improve the world during your travels, like the volunteers who work in needy, sometimes dangerous places for Doctors Without Borders. The group, founded in 1971 in France as Medecins Sans Frontieres, is a nonprofit organization devoted to critical medical care.

AS someone who travels chiefly for pleasure, I sometimes feel guilty that I'm living off the fat of the land and contributing virtually nothing in return. Far better to improve the world during your travels, like the volunteers who work in needy, sometimes dangerous places for Doctors Without Borders. The group, founded in 1971 in France as Medecins Sans Frontieres, is a nonprofit organization devoted to critical medical care.

Sudan arrested a second Doctors Without Borders worker over a report on rapes in Darfur, U.N. and aid officials said. On Monday, Sudanese authorities detained Paul Foreman, a senior official from the aid group in Sudan, whose Darfur region has been plagued by more than two years of bloodshed. Foreman said he had been charged with spying, publishing false reports and undermining Sudanese society. Charges were pending against the second worker, Vince Hoedt.

A bomb blast Wednesday killed six people, including two United Nations workers registering Afghan voters, in an area of southeast Afghanistan where U.S.-led forces have frequently battled Taliban fighters and their allies.

Nobel Prize-winning relief agency Doctors Without Borders announced that it would withdraw from Afghanistan because of the killing of five of its staff and the risk of further attacks. The group also said it was pulling out because it was unhappy with a government investigation of the June 2 deaths and with the "co-optation of humanitarian aid" by U.S.-led forces there "for military and political motives."

Deborah Milligan looks the part of the Southern California surfer girl. With her blond hair tied back into a ponytail, her tan skin draped in linen and beachcombing flip-flops on her feet, she could blend right in with the denizens of her native Newport Beach. But for more than a year, Milligan saw more funerals than barbecues, and her feet traversed muddy, potholed roads rather than the fine grain of Pacific beaches.

RUSSIA * Gunmen in southern Russia kidnapped a Dutch leader of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in the second abduction of an aid worker in the troubled North Caucasus region since July, officials said. Arjan Erkel, head of the medical aid group's mission in Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya, was taken late Monday outside Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, police said.

Pick Systems, a developer of database management software, donated $2,000 Wednesday to Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that provides medical relief in troubled regions around the world. The donation was made on behalf of Michelle Farooqi, who won the company's Millennium Bug Contest to design an image of the so-called millennium bug. Farooqi's victory also earned her an additional $2,000 and an IBM Word Pad personal organizer.

Sudan arrested a second Doctors Without Borders worker over a report on rapes in Darfur, U.N. and aid officials said. On Monday, Sudanese authorities detained Paul Foreman, a senior official from the aid group in Sudan, whose Darfur region has been plagued by more than two years of bloodshed. Foreman said he had been charged with spying, publishing false reports and undermining Sudanese society. Charges were pending against the second worker, Vince Hoedt.

The U.S. aid worker who spent nearly a month in captivity in Russia's separatist republic of Chechnya provided an account of his release Thursday that sharply contradicted the official Russian version. Kenneth Gluck, 39, who directed the Chechnya relief program of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid group Doctors Without Borders, declined to speculate as to who may have been behind his abduction.

Kenneth Gluck's day began just like many others for the U.S. aid worker tending to the needs of the people of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. He made sure his papers and security passes were in order, climbed into his well-marked Doctors Without Borders car and drove into Chechnya from this town in a neighboring republic.