NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The United Nations fears COVID-19 ‘massive community transfer’ in Ethiopia’s struggling Tigray region, fueled by displacement and the collapse of health services, as humanitarian workers finally began accessing the region two months after the fighting began.
A new UN report based on initial on-site evaluations, confirms some of the serious concerns surrounding Tigray’s approximately 6 million people since the conflict broke out on November 4 between Ethiopian forces and those of the Tigray region: hospitals have been looted, even destroyed, and some fighting go ahead.
The crisis threatened to destabilize one of the most powerful and populous countries in Africa and to attract neighbors such as Sudan. Tigray leaders dominated the Ethiopian government for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and ousted them amid extensive reforms brought to him by the Nobel Peace Prize.
Abiy has rejected international “interference” in the conflict, even though the UN and others have been calling for unhindered access to Tigray for weeks as food, medicine and other supplies run out.
Now COVID-19 has emerged as the latest source of alarm. “Only five of the 40 hospitals in Tigray are physically accessible,” the new UN report released on Thursday said. “Apart from those in Mekele (the capital of Tigray), the remaining hospitals are being looted and many are believed to be destroyed.” It does not say who did the looting.
COVID-19’s surveillance and control work has been suspended in Tigray for more than a month, and that, along with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, ‘fears that the massive transmission of the pandemic has been made possible’, the report said.
Ethiopia has one of the highest COVID-19 case loads on the African continent with more than 127,000 confirmed infections. Although the number of daily cases has decreased in recent weeks, officials have not said whether they have received any information from the Tigray region.
“Health facilities outside the big cities are non-functional and those in the big cities work in part with limited supplies and no absence of health workers,” the UN report said.
The report also says that 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 last week,” it said.
The general humanitarian situation is ‘dire’, says the UN, with food supplies ‘very limited’ and widespread looting. “Only locally produced food products are available and at rising prices, making basic goods unaffordable.” Most Tigray residents are subsistence farmers, and the conflict disrupted the harvest.
Two major camps housing tens of thousands of refugees from nearby Eritrea remain unreachable – another source of concern other than the presence of Eritrean troops has been confirmed in Tigray.
No one knows how many thousands of people died in the conflict. At least five humanitarian workers have been killed.