Report
The state of affairs in Tigray according to two Tigrayan residents of Mekelle
Have you ever been in a situation where your former teacher tells “I have nothing to eat” and there is nothing you can do to help him? Have you ever been in a situation where a doctor treating patients collapses from hunger? Have you ever been in a situation where in almost every few steps in the street, children ask you ” I am hungry”? Have you ever been in a situation where your friend tells you “I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday” and yet there is nothing you can offer him? How would you feel if you were experiencing this everyday and yet there is no way you can help with?
Due to the blockade and communications blackout, there are virtually no citizen voices from Tigray. The condition in Tigray is so desperate, a catastrophe. Last week, Ayder Hospital doctors and health professionals made a desperate call to the world to intervene. Today, a list of academics in the health and medicine from across the world have appealed to world leaders about the situation in Tigray. They said:
“In short—a medical catastrophe is unfolding, in the background of war, famine, and a humanitarian tragedy. We demand that the relevant bodies, the UN, the African Union, WHO and, above all, the Ethiopian Government stand by the health workers and the patients in Mekele. It is heartbreaking to see that those with the capacity to help do nothing, merely muttering that they are gravely concerned. We write this on Christmas Day in Ethiopia. We pray for deliverance for Mekele’s sick and helpless patients.”
Two Tigrayan residents of Mekelle have posted on Facebook about the tragedy they see unfolding in Tigray daily. One of them says
Children are dying as a result of malnutrition, airstrikes or drone attack. Women are dying while delivering during child birth as there is no access for health care…Elderly people are dying as a result of lack of medicine.
She adds the people of Tigray are dying as a result of the blockade and lack of access to humanitarian aid. The other Tigrayan resident, Fitsum Berhane, paints a grimmer picture in a post in Tigrinya.
Below is a translation of the post.
Have you ever been in a situation where your former teacher tells you “I have nothing to eat” and there is nothing you can do to help him? Have you ever been in a situation where a doctor treating patients collapses from hunger? Have you ever been in a situation where in almost every few steps in the street, children ask you ” I am hungry”? Have you ever been in a situation where your friend tells you “I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday” and yet there is nothing you can offer him? How would you feel if you were experiencing this everyday and yet there is no way you can help with?
WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, says blockade has created hell in Tigray and that it is “an insult to our humanity”.
As a Tigrayan, I appeal to humanity to intervene and get the people of Tigray out of the man-made hell. There is no time and the people have no way to make their cries of agony be heard as they are under a total communications blackout and blockade. Everyone must act, and now, to save the millions of Tigrayans that are just falling like leaves.
