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Sep 25, 2021, 10 tweets

Doctors Without Borders saves lives every day. Some insiders say it is also a racist workplace where non-white workers get worse pay and inferior medical care.

We interviewed about 100 current and former staffers in an investigation with @reveal.

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Ali N'Simbo dreamed of joining Doctors Without Borders, known as @MSF internationally, ever since he saw them ferrying the wounded and sick as the horrors of the First Congo War swept his homeland.

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By 2011, N'Simbo was a doctor and team leader for MSF in Congo — but he was still paid a fraction of what the relief organization paid his European and North American colleagues.

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In 2016, N'Simbo became the first African elected to the board of @MSF_USA.

He began calling for fairness and equity — but it made some powerful people within the organization uncomfortable.

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During a 2017 board meeting at the @MSF_USA headquarters, N'Simbo was threatened by one of his colleagues, who told him, "I will break your face within one second."

N'Simbo was stunned and deflated.

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Four years after N'Simbo faced down that threat, MSF confronts a deepening crisis.

Current and former staffers are bearing witness with stories of racism, discrimination, and inequitable treatment they say are baked into MSF's global operations.

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Listen to the @reveal podcast in which Dr. Indira Govender, a South African who took a job at MSF in 2011, explains how she experienced such racism first-hand.

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MSF has also left locals in war zones while their colleagues from Europe, North America, and elsewhere are evacuated.

It also sends non-white workers into violent areas, based on the understanding that white staffers are more likely to be kidnapped.

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MSF says it has acknowledged its past and current flaws and is taking strides to increase diversity and fairness in the way it treats its staff.

"We are deeply sorry for the pain that racism and discrimination within MSF has caused our colleagues," a representative said.

Subscribe to Insider and read more of our investigation into Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, here:

businessinsider.com/doctors-withou…

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