The absolute abandonment of the population in Tigray is causing a terrible humanitarian catastrophe

Our colleague, Esperanza Santos, is a nurse and Emergency Coordinator in Tigray, Ethiopia, where the armed conflict has devastated a developed and rich region in just six months, with hundreds of thousands of people having to flee. “It is not the bullets that kill the most in Tigray; it is the abandonment of the population to its fate, the lack of livelihoods ”, he says.

I’m Esperanza Santos, nurse and Emergency Coordinator in Tigray, and I want to tell you about the situation here, in northern Ethiopia, where I arrived in January. Things are complicated, but, unlike what happens in our country, in Tigray we do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Quite the contrary. People are suffering more and more from the armed conflict. I have been working on all kinds of crises for many years, but I have rarely seen what we are experiencing here. I will try to summarize the situation.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes, many of them fleeing only with what they were wearing, after armed clashes broke out in early November. And what worries me the most is the extreme level of violence that the population is suffering and the absolute helplessness that it suffers.

Tigray was one of the most beautiful and developed areas in Ethiopia, with livestock, agriculture, industry, universities, large infrastructure and an advanced health system. Its spectacular landscapes and other tourist charms attracted thousands of travelers every year …

But all of this has been destroyed in just six months. As always happens in armed conflicts, it is the population that suffers the most, but, specifically in this case, I have been impressed by the indiscriminate attacks against civilians, for example, the killings of defenseless people.

Some of our teams have witnessed these acts of violence. All parties to the conflict are destroying what they find in their path and using violence against the population as a weapon of war.

Wherever we go, we are finding thousands of displaced people, exhausted, in very poor physical and psychological conditions, and who have absolutely nothing. And, throughout the region, we are seeing populations razed: water pipes destroyed, crops and grain stores burned, cattle slaughtered, and schools, hospitals and health centers looted, vandalized or used as military bases.

The health system, which was one of the most developed in Ethiopia, has become a war target and has been systematically and deliberately destroyed. But it’s not bullets that kill the most in Tigray; It is the abandonment of the population to its fate, the lack of livelihoods that allow families to survive and the impossibility of reaching a health center that continues to be open and functioning. If people who fall ill or injured cannot receive medical assistance, you can imagine the consequences.

And fear. You can see and feel the terror. People are afraid to leave their shelters, to cultivate their fields, to go to the market or to look for food and water. Even the local health personnel are afraid to continue working, because, in many of the areas where we have been, they have been threatened simply for treating their patients or for assisting pregnant women in their homes.

One of our most important jobs is to be here. This population feels abandoned by the world and the simple presence of an international organization like ours, Doctors Without Borders, in this forgotten conflict is making people, families and health personnel feel more protected. As they tell us, we give them hope.

Thanks to the support and collaboration of our partners and donors, we are able to support three hospitals in some of the most important cities to ensure medical assistance, as we are already doing. We can also be in remote rural populations that have been left without any type of health service.

Other humanitarian organizations have recently been arriving in Tigray, but the response on the ground remains extremely limited, for the most part only reaching the largest cities. In many rural areas, where thousands of people still hide from the violence in the mountains, they only have us.

The health situation in the entire region is very critical. Wherever there are health personnel and minimum security conditions, we try to reactivate medical assistance, giving it a first push with medicines, medical supplies, water and cleaning products. Working together with them, supporting their initiative and perseverance, even if only for a few days, is getting some health centers to reopen to help the population.

But in many places, there are not enough staff or those who are there feel unprotected. Therefore, to reach the maximum possible number of people, we are multiplying our teams as much as we can, offering health services through mobile clinics and referring the most urgent cases to hospitals.

As the health system has been destroyed, in these clinics we have to do everything: vaccinate, care for children and pregnant women with signs of malnutrition, or treat diarrheal and respiratory diseases or skin and eye infections due to lack of hygiene.

And also assist people injured by the fighting, including young children, and women who have suffered extreme sexual violence. For this reason, in our teams, we have specialists who offer psychological and social support to all these victims.

In addition, we have the opportunity to attend to women in labor in our mobile clinics. Thus, mothers can give birth assisted by qualified personnel, babies receive complete perinatal care, and our team have an extra injection of motivation to continue working another day!

We continue to need help and we urgently need it. We need it to restore immunization programs, since most children have not received their vaccinations since November.

With support like yours, we will once again offer maternal and pediatric care, so that pregnant women can give birth in a hospital safely and to take care of the health of the little ones. Your help will also help people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, get back on medication they haven’t had for months.

Right now, we are already working to alleviate the suffering of as many people as we can.

Source: Medicines Sans Frontiers