The Peace Room: Saving Lives with MSF in a Forgotten War
Saving Lives with MSF in a Forgotten War
In this episode of The Peace Room, we step into one of the most underreported humanitarian crises of our time: Sudan. Together with Christina Psarra, General Director of Médecins Sans Frontières Greece, we move beyond headlines to understand what humanitarian action really looks like on the ground—where medicine, survival, and conflict intersect. From the daily realities of operating in collapsing health systems to the ethical limits of neutrality in war, this conversation unpacks both the urgency and the complexity of MSF’s work. We also ask a deeper question: can humanitarian action contribute to peace, or is it destined to remain a response to its absence? Finally, we turn to the politics of visibility—why some crises mobilise global attention, while others, like Sudan, remain at the margins of the international conversation. This is a story about care under fire, invisible emergencies, and the difficult balance between saving lives and witnessing suffering.
The Peace Room
This podcast enters the spaces where official diplomacy rarely looks — the contact zones built by ordinary people. We explore the micro-diplomacy, quiet negotiations, and community stitching that keep fragile societies standing. Each episode uncovers how peace is sustained from below. These are stories of unarmed voices, shared courage, and the everyday work of resilience. This is the world of grassroots peacebuilding, one conversation at a time.
About the Guest
Christina Psarra is currently the General Director of the Greek Section of Médecins Sans Frontières, while in the past she has been the Head of Humanitarian Programs and responsible of the Operations Research Unit of MSF in Brussels.
She has also led, supported and coordinated aid programs in several countries among which Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Kenya, Chad, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Egypt and has coordinated search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea. Mrs. Psarra has also worked extensively in urban settings. In Marseille, she coordinated a nationwide experimental project offering housing to homeless with severe mental disorders, in Greece she has designed and managed social and health care programs for drug users and Roma populations and has co-initiated the “Refugees Welcome – Greece” project.
She has researched humanitarian systems, access to care and has worked in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.
She studied Philosophy at the University of Athens and Social Policy in Panteion. She has a Master of Science in NGOs and Development from LSE and has fulfilled a Fulbright Research Fellowship in the University of Maryland. She has been a Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Strategic Management for NGO Leaders program and trained as a negotiator at the US Peace Institute.
- Africa conflicts
- Chad
- conflict journalism
- conflict zones
- crisis response
- Displacement
- emergency medicine
- global health
- global politics
- healthcare in war
- Human rights
- humanitarian action
- humanitarian crisis
- humanitarian ethics
- international aid
- invisible crises
- journalism
- Médecins Sans Frontières
- media attention
- medical aid
- medical neutrality
- MSF
- NGOs
- peacebuilding
- pulse z
- refugees
- Sudan
- Sudan war
- underreported conflicts
- war reporting
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