An interior view of a hospital, which was allegedly damaged by TPLF rebels, after Ethiopian army took control of Haik and Dessie towns of Amhara city from the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia on December 14, 2021. (Photo by Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Bereket Tumay Redae, who is just over two years old, lives in Mekelle, in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia.
He was admitted to Ayder Hospital more than five months ago with visceral leishmaniasis, a potentially fatal disease transmitted by sandflies, which can be survived, if treated.
But, according to his doctors, Bereket is now helplessly sick.
The medicine to treat his condition is not available in the region, thanks to a blockade by the Ethiopian government, in place since last June, after Tigrayan forces recaptured the capital Mekelle and government forces withdrew.
Bereket’s parents died in the war. His grandmother says they were killed by government forces. And he is not alone.
Fasika Amdeslesie, a surgeon at the biggest hospital in the capital, says the last delivery of medicines for conditions like Bereket’s was last May. Without those medicines, “hundreds of children’’ with conditions like childhood cancer will die, he says. “Children came to our hospital and they were sent away with nothing, to die at home.”
The tentative ceasefire in what the central government calls a “law enforcement operation” didn’t mean more medicine. But it did mean a supply of food — at first, anyway.
That ended last month when fighting escalated on the border between the Amhara and Tigray regions. Then, on 26 August, an airstrike hit Makelle. Health officials say at least seven people, including two children, died. Kibrom Gebreselassie, the director of Ayder Hospital in Mekelle, says a 17-year-old boy was brought to their hospital. “His heart was blown out. Instant death for the kid.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government denied they had killed civilians.
Alongside the lack of medicine, doctors are also not receiving their salaries. Gebreselassie, who runs the largest hospital in the region, says it’s routine for him to only eat once a day.
Despite the resumption of fighting, little information is available about the situation on the ground.
The Ethiopian government is controlling the flow of information through social media campaigns, bots and by kicking out those who disagree with its narrative of the war. Even the word “war” is unacceptable to the state.
The lack of communication means many Ethiopians do not know the fate of their families in and around the regions where fighting has happened since November 2020.
Temesgen Kahsay, an academic in Oslo, says that in order for him to call his 75-year-old mother, she had to travel from her hometown in Tigray to another town near the border with the Amhara region. “Once she arrived there, she called my brother, who lives in another part of Ethiopia, then he contacted me to call her.”
But even this tenuous method has failed — he has not spoken to his mother since last June. Since then, the war has turned into a stalemate. Thanks in part to its purchase of drones, the central government was able to stop a Tigrayan advance on Addis Ababa late last year.
It then turned to severely restricting humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, from entering Tigray, in violation of international law, according to Amnesty International.
The state also denies this.
The blockade has plunged the region into a severe humanitarian crisis that is being exacerbated by a regional drought. About 90% of the region’s 5.5-million people need aid, according to the United Nations.
Tens of thousands have been killed, with millions displaced and numerous atrocities by both sides have been documented.
This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. It’s designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download your free copy here