[3] MSF was founded in 1971, in the aftermath of the Biafran famine of the Nigerian Civil War, by a small group of French doctors and journalists who sought to expand accessibility to medical care across national boundaries and irrespective of race, religion, creed or political affiliation.

It received the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its members' continued efforts to provide medical care in acute crises, as well as raising international awareness of potential humanitarian disasters.

[4] Apart from Nigeria, MSF exists in several African countries including Benin, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and others.

On 18 and 19 September 1974, Hurricane Fifi caused major flooding in Honduras and killed thousands of people (estimates vary), and MSF set up its first long-term medical relief mission.

MSF spent nine years (1976–1984) assisting surgeries in the hospitals of various cities in Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War, and established a reputation for its neutrality and willingness to work under fire.

Although the project did not receive support from the majority of MSF, some, including later Minister Bernard Kouchner, chartered a ship called L'Île de Lumière ("The Island of Light"), and, along with doctors, journalists and photographers, sailed to the South China Sea and provided some medical aid to the boat people.

The early 1990s saw the establishment of the majority of the support sections: MSF-Greece (1990), MSF-USA (1990), MSF-Canada (1991), MSF-Japan (1992), MSF-UK (1993), MSF-Italy (1993), MSF-Australia (1994), as well as Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Hong Kong (MSF-UAE was formed later).

In December 1979, after the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan, field missions were immediately set up to provide medical aid to the mujahideen, and in February 1980, MSF publicly denounced the Khmer Rouge.

MSF's explicit attacks on the Ethiopian government led to other NGOs criticizing their abandonment of their supposed neutrality and contributed to a series of debates in France around humanitarian ethics.

[22] Constant fighting throughout the 1990s and the Second Liberian Civil War have kept MSF volunteers actively providing nutrition, basic health care, and mass vaccinations, and speaking out against attacks on hospitals and feeding stations, especially in Monrovia.

[26] When the genocide in Rwanda began in April 1994, some delegates of MSF working in the country were incorporated into the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) medical team for protection.

In addition to providing surgical and psychological support in existing hospitals – offering the only free surgery available in Port-au-Prince – field missions have been set up to rebuild water and waste management systems and treat survivors of major flooding caused by Hurricane Jeanne; patients with HIV/AIDS and malaria, both of which are widespread in the country, also receive better treatment and monitoring.

[49] In the late 1990s, MSF missions were set up to treat tuberculosis and anaemia in residents of the Aral Sea area, and look after civilians affected by drug-resistant disease, famine, and epidemics of cholera and AIDS.

The groups of men were travelling between villages and systematically chopping off one or both of each resident's arms, raping women, gunning down families, razing houses, and forcing survivors to leave the area.

[54] Since 1979, MSF has been providing medical humanitarian assistance in Sudan, a nation plagued by starvation and the civil war, prevalent malnutrition and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

In March 2009, it is reported that MSF has employed 4,590 field staff in Sudan[55] tackling issues such as armed conflicts, epidemic diseases, health care and social exclusion.

[64] The treatment and possible vaccination against diseases such as cholera, measles, polio, Marburg fever, sleeping sickness,[65] HIV/AIDS, and bubonic plague is also important to prevent or slow down epidemics.

Mental health is also an important aspect of medical treatment for MSF teams in Uganda since most people refuse to leave the IDP camps for constant fear of being attacked.

Due to long decades of war, a proper health care system in the country was severely lacking and MSF moved inland in 1989 to help restructure basic medical facilities.

[78] In 2002, MSF established chronic diseases clinics with the Cambodian Ministry of Health in various provinces to integrate HIV/AIDS treatment, alongside hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis which have high prevalence rate.

The need for psychological counseling has increased and MSF has set up mental health services to address the fears and stress of people living in tents without water and electricity.

MSF has also provided medical teams to support other NGOs and their ships like the MOAS Phoenix (2015) or the Aquarius (2017–2018) and Ocean Viking (2019–2020) with SOS Méditerranée[90] and Mediterranea Saving Humans.

[101] MSF has been active in Italy since 1999, providing comprehensive assistance – including humanitarian, medical, psychological, and socio-health support – to migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees across the country.

Some of these diseases, such as cholera and measles, spread rapidly in large populations living in close proximity, such as in a refugee camp, and people must be immunised by the hundreds or thousands in a short period of time.

[133] Large-scale forced migrations, excessive civilian casualties and massacres can be quantified using surveys, and MSF can use the results to put pressure on governments to provide help, or even expose genocide.

[147] The organisation was forced to evacuate its teams from Afghanistan on 28 July 2004,[148] after five staff (Afghans Fasil Ahmad and Besmillah, Belgian Hélène de Beir, Norwegian Egil Tynæs, and Dutchman Willem Kwint) were killed on 2 June in an ambush by unidentified militia near Khair Khāna in Badghis Province.

Paul Foreman, head of MSF-Holland, was arrested in Sudan in May 2005 for refusing to divulge documents used in compiling a report on rapes carried out by the pro-government Janjaweed militias (see Darfur conflict).

In the opening, he discusses the conditions of the victims of the Rwandan genocide and focuses on one of his woman patients:[167] There were hundreds of women, children and men brought to the hospital that day, so many that we had to lay them out on the street and even operate on some of them there.

Orbinski affirmed the organisation's commitment to publicising the issues MSF encountered, stating[168] Silence has long been confused with neutrality, and has been presented as a necessary condition for humanitarian action.

Included in the collective staff statement was testimony of personal experiences of racism within MSF, both in the form of adverse treatment in the workplace, and what is perceived as a white supremacist and colonial mindset expressed in the formation and implementation of programmes.