Nabil Al-Tikriti, associate professor of history and American studies, participated in the annual Field Associative Debate (FAD) for MSF staff serving in Athens, Greece, on March 7. Al-Tikriti is board member of the United States section of MSF/Doctors Without Borders.
The Athens team debated on issues connected to forced migration in the Mediterranean and Balkans regions — their primary programmatic focus. In the course of these debates, participants addressed questions concerning the importance of “people on the move” consisting of refugees, economic migrants, or mixed groups; the propriety of MSF providing general humanitarian relief as opposed to narrow medical assistance; the possibility of MSF providing relief in detention centers without becoming instrumentalized as part of state policy; and other issues connected to providing medical humanitarian relief to vulnerable populations on the move in the Mediterranean and Balkan regions.
Prior to this year’s FAD, Al-Tikriti went on a brief field visit to an MSF urban referral clinic in Athens, and upon his return helped the team start a FAD report, and completed a brief memo on regional operations for internal review.