“There are 5.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Tigray; That includes 3.8 million people who are in need of medical assistance and we need to reach these people,” said Ilham Abdelhai Nour, World Health Organization Team Leader for Ethiopia, Incident Management Systems and Operations Emergency said.
‘No access to Tigray’
“We have access in Amhara and Afar, so we know more about the situation there and we can intervene and assist,” Ms. Nour said, referring to areas bordering Tigray.
“However, we do not have access in Tigray; There has been no air or land access to Tigray for the past six weeks. “
Malaria spikes dramatically
Based on WHOMalaria cases are up 80% in Tigray and 40% in neighboring Amhara compared to last year – although cases are falling in Amhara.
But malaria is just one of the deadly threats that millions of people affected by the conflict and humanitarian agencies have repeated. warning on their behalf, since fighting between federal troops and separatists in Tigray broke out in November 2020.
Helping in Tigray is difficult, as more than half of the medical facilities in the area are closed, leaving people untreated for injuries and injuries, food insecurity and malnutrition, sexual violence education and gender, infectious diseases such as malaria and cholera, as well as reduced access to treatment for noncommunicable diseases and maternal and child health services.
Earlier this month, the United Nations aid coordination office, OCHAreports that civilians waiting to receive much-needed humanitarian assistance have been set on fire.
It also warns that newcomers to Tigray’s Zelazele are “in dire straits with most sleeping in open areas directly exposed to cold weather and other protective risks”.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – himself an ethnic Tigrayan – has repeatedly reiterated widespread concern about the crisis, including last week, when he warned that there was only a “very narrow window”. to prevent genocide there.
The UN agency stressed that, despite the physical and telecommunications barriers faced by aid groups working in Tigray, enough regular updates from the region – sometimes delivered to WHO – to warrant Friday’s warning.
Mothers take their children to treatment for malnutrition at a migrant camp in Tigray, Ethiopia.
Lack of food
Quoting the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) data, WHO notes that in Amhara and Afar, 19% and 14% of mainly displaced children under 5 years of age are currently food insecure, while in Tigray, “astonishing” 89% of the population Some are food insecure and nearly half are severely food insecure.
“One in three children under the age of five in Tigray is malnourished,” Altaf Musani, director of emergency medical interventions, said in Geneva. “Severe acute malnutrition among children in the region is 6%, 65% of children have not received nutritional support for more than a year.”
Emphasizing the clear link between malnutrition and disease, Mr. Musani describes how basic health services have been cut. Understanding the true scale of the need is also complicated by the fact that only 30% of health facilities in Tigray are still able to provide weekly status reports to WHO.
The spikes have stopped
“Immunization services (are) a lifeline for children to keep them alive; those services have stopped working,” Mr. Musani said. “We are aware that there have been confirmed reports of stocks, intravenous fluids, antibiotics, and other medications that do not exist in those facilities, we have had direct reports of this information. believe it.”
As peace talks between the warring parties begin this week in South Africa, the Tigrayan community urgently needs safe and secure access to provide life-saving assistance, the WHO stressed.
“The outreach took place intermittently between March and August and during the humanitarian armistice (in Afar, Amhara and Tigray) we were able to bring, not much, but really a small amount meets a small amount of demand there, she said. Nour.
“We were also able to support essential services in Tigray, support the measles campaign there, but we were unable to distribute supplies quickly because of the lack of cash and fuel. We cannot carry out malaria control activities for the same reasons; we were not able to expand COVID-19 The vaccination campaign is outside the capital, Mekelle, so we have a big accessibility problem there. “
