NAIROBI, Kenya (PA) – The United Nations fears the “mass community transmission” of COVID-19 in the troubled Tigray region of Ethiopia, fueled by displacement and the collapse of health services, as humanitarian workers finally begin access to the region. two months after the fighting began.
A new report to the UN based on initial on-site assessments confirms some of the grim concerns surrounding the 6 million people in Tigray since the November 4 conflict between Ethiopian and Tigray forces broke out: hospitals were looted, even destroyed, and some fighting keep going.
The crisis has threatened to destabilize one of Africa’s most powerful and populous countries and attract neighbors such as Sudan. Tigray’s leaders dominated the Ethiopian government for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and left them amid radical reforms that brought him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Abiy rejected international “interference” in the conflict even as the UN and others pleaded for weeks for unhindered access to Tigray as food, medicine and other supplies ran out.
Now COVID-19 has appeared as the latest source of alarm. “Only five of Tigray’s 40 hospitals are physically accessible,” the new UN report said on Thursday. “Apart from those in the (capital Tigray) Mekele, the remaining hospitals are looted and many have been destroyed.” It is not said who committed the robbery.
The COVID-19 surveillance and control works were interrupted for more than a month in Tigray and, together with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, “it is feared that it facilitated the mass transmission of the pandemic community,” the report said.
Ethiopia has one of the largest numbers of COVID-19 cases on the African continent, with over 127,000 confirmed infections. Although the daily case rate has dropped in recent weeks, officials have not said whether they have received data from the Tigray region.
“Health facilities outside major cities are dysfunctional and those in large cities are partially operational, with a limited stock of supplies and the absence of health workers,” the UN report said.
The report also says the Tigray region remains volatile. “Localized fighting and insecurity continue, with fighting reported in rural areas and on the outskirts of Mekele, Shiraro and Shire, among other locations, since last week,” he said.
The general humanitarian situation is “serious”, says the UN, with “very limited” food supplies and widespread robberies. “Only locally produced food is available at rising prices, which makes commodities inaccessible.” Most of the people of Tigray are subsistence farmers, and the conflict has disrupted the harvest.
Two major camps housing tens of thousands of refugees in nearby Eritrea remain inaccessible – another source of alarm as the presence of Eritrean troops was confirmed in Tigray.
No one knows how many thousands of people were killed in the conflict. At least five humanitarian workers were killed.