Switzerland freezes CHF 1.25 million in MSF funding, says charity broke reporting duty over Chad abuse cases

Switzerland is holding back CHF 1.25 million ($1.52 million) from Médecins Sans Frontières, the Geneva-based charity known as Doctors Without Borders. The Swiss foreign ministry says MSF breached its contractual duty to report sexual exploitation by its staff in eastern Chad.

The frozen money is one tranche of the CHF 6.25 million Bern pledged to MSF for 2026. That is 20% of the year's commitment. A foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed the hold to the Keystone-SDA news agency after NZZ am Sonntag published internal emails and meeting minutes on Sunday, Oct. 25.

What MSF found in Chad

An internal MSF investigation recorded 59 allegations of sexual violence and exploitation. Most involved women and girls who fled the war in Sudan for refugee camps in eastern Chad. Hundreds of thousands of people have crossed that border since 2023.

The Associated Press reported on June 13, citing a confidential MSF memo, that staff traded food, water and jobs for sex with refugees. Some victims were underage girls. The memo said some of the repeated exploitation suggested possible organized "sexual trafficking."

AP and Swiss media also reported that in at least one camp, community leaders imposed a curfew on girls to keep them away from aid workers, not from armed groups.

MSF dismissed 18 people and barred them from future work with the charity. Six came from MSF's Swiss section. The cases involved contracted staff, daily workers, external contractors and suppliers. MSF has operated in Chad since 1981 and employs 872 locally hired and 81 international staff there.

How the money trail ran

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) paid MSF almost CHF 12 million in 2025. Around CHF 7 million went to MSF projects in Chad and South Sudan across 2024 and 2025, including about CHF 2 million for the Chad programme now under scrutiny.

This is taxpayer money. The agency says it did not know the scale of what it was paying for.

Bern was warned in 2024

The NZZ am Sonntag emails show Bern had an early signal. In November 2024, MSF's Geneva headquarters emailed the SDC late on a Friday. Three female refugees had reportedly described sexual exploitation in Chad, the message said, and the allegations were already under investigation.

In mid-December 2024, officials agreed to meet MSF in January. Discussions did not resume until June and July 2025. A federal official wrote in the interim that the foreign ministry had "no urgent questions." By the summer of 2025 the file was treated internally as closed.

MSF completed its internal report in July 2025. The AP had already reported in November 2024 that Sudanese women in eastern Chad were being offered aid and work in exchange for sex.

At a February 2026 meeting on protection from sexual exploitation, the SDC received no new information, according to NZZ am Sonntag. The paper reported that Bern even cited MSF's transparency as exemplary at that point, still unaware that dozens of cases had been confirmed.

The SDC grasped the scale only after the AP story ran in June and demanded MSF's documents. The Sunday paper reported that mistrust of the charity inside the Swiss administration is now "immense."

MSF's response

MSF does not contest the abuse. A spokesperson for the Swiss foreign ministry said the charity stayed in contact with Bern. The ministry spokesperson conceded that the full scale of confirmed cases and dismissals was not disclosed "proactively and early enough."

MSF itself has acknowledged mistakes, according to Swiss reporting.

The dispute in Bern is over disclosure and contract compliance. MSF's position, in short, is that it was talking to the SDC and investigating. The foreign ministry, led by Ignazio Cassis, says the notifications were not timely or complete enough under the funding contract. Both accounts rest on the same email chain: an early alert from MSF, then months of little follow-up from either side.

The Swiss officials' own conduct in that chain is a separate question from MSF's. Federal staff were told in November 2024 that allegations existed. Their own internal notes describe "no urgent questions" and a file closed in 2025.

What happens next

The CHF 1.25 million stays frozen until the SDC has checked the documents MSF handed over after the AP story. Further sanctions and an external review are under discussion, according to the Swiss reporting.

From 2027, reporting rules will be tightened for every NGO that partners with the SDC. Whether that change covers how Bern's own staff follow up on early warnings has not been announced. The foreign ministry has also not said how much of MSF's remaining funding is at risk.