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The guns may have been silenced, for now at least, and boom! boom! boom! Aerial bombardments may have stopped in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, but the large-scale humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region is just beginning.
Tens of thousands of people who fled to Sudan in search of refuge now live in harrowing conditions without water, food or sanitation. it’s like running from hell only to end up in hell again.
In Sudan, Ethiopian refugees are in a country facing an economic crisis and political uncertainty following a revolution that ended with the removal of President Omar al-Bashir by the military.
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The refugee crisis began on November 4, 2020, when the Ethiopian government began military operations in Tigray, one of the country’s semi-autonomous regions located on the northern border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed described the offensive as a response to an attack on a federal military base by the ruling party in the region, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF led the old coalition that ruled Ethiopia for almost three decades before Abiy took office in April 2018. TPLF leaders rejected Abiy’s reason, describing it as an excuse to launch a long-planned offensive on Tigray.
The conflict has affected hundreds of thousands of people and sparked a humanitarian crisis, now on multiple fronts.
About 60,000 refugees have crossed from the Tigray region into Sudan, while about a million Tigrayans have been internally displaced.
Jean-Nicolas Dangelser, Head of Mission in Sudan with Doctors Without Borders / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) spoke exclusively with Today’s News Kristi Pelzel from Africa.
He said a challenge for his team was at the beginning of the mission, when tens of thousands of people were transferred from the border area to Um Rakuba without any prior site preparation.
“There was very little shelter, almost none, very little water, and very little medical care. Basically, people fell in the middle of the desert, ”Dangelser said from Khartoum in Sudan.
According to him, refugees from Ethiopia are entering Sudan in three places: Hamdayet in Kassala state, eastern Sudan, Gedaref state in the southeast, and in the country’s Blue Nile state. MSF is currently providing assistance at the Hamdayet border crossing in Kassala state and at the Um Rakuba camp in Gedaref state.
Dangelser said he was not aware of any support the Ethiopian government provides to Ethiopian citizens fleeing to Sudan.
Despite a global pandemic, a lack of sanitation and basic services such as shelter and water, international development workers such as Doctors Without Borders / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) continue to risk their lives and safety to help civilians, including women and children, caught in the middle of Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict. But more help is needed.
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