Doctors Without Borders spurn EU funding in protest at Turkey migration deal

Medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it will reject all funding from the European Union and its member states in protest at a deal to stem the influx of migrants and refugees that the EU reached with Turkey.

Under the deal, struck in March to cut off a human tide that brought a million refugees and migrants to Europe in 2015, Turkey agreed to halt illegal migration through its territory in return for financial and political rewards.

Jerome Oberreit, MSF's International Secretary General, said the agreement went against the fundamental principles of providing assistance to people in need.

"This is jeopardising the very concept of the refugee," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Oberreit said MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders and active in disaster zones across the world, will lose 37 million euros ($41.6 million) of funding from EU states and 19 million euros from EU institutions.

In the short term it would cover the shortfall from emergency reserves.

"It's really important to see the real people instead of the political football that they have become," he said. "We're talking about Europe's refugee shame."

European Commission spokesman...