Some of the nurses and doctors helping at the biggest hospital in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region have joined to beg for food to feed themselves, one of the medic team said.

They have not been paid for eight months, forcing them to find other means of supporting their families, he said.

The doctor’s account comes as the UN reports that “severe hunger” was hitting even more people in Tigray. It says that 2.2 million people “are suffering an extreme lack of food”.

According to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) survey revealed that nearly half of all pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are suffering from malnutrition

Generally, in Tigray and other two regions affected by the months of fighting, Amhara and Afar, nine million people need some form of food assistance, the WFP added.

Ethiopia’s federal government forces have been battling rebels from the northern Tigray region since November 2020 in a conflict that has killed thousands of people.

For most of that period, most of Tigray has been cut off, making it hard to deliver essential aid and medical supplies.

Banks, on the other hand, have also been shut, making it impossible for people to access their savings or funds to pay others.

In these trying times, doctors and nurses have not been spared from the suffering.

Speaking based on anonymity, a doctor from Ayder Hospital, in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, said that seeing nurses and doctors queuing for food parcels had become normal over the past seven months.

They have not been paid since May last year (2021).

“Most have cut the number of meals they can take per day. Food oil, vegetables, grains – the price has soared so high that it is unthinkable to buy. Some have started begging for food,” .
One of the doctors narrated

He spoke about how the lack of medical supplies has affected treatment, saying, instead of sterilised surgical gauze, an essential for cleaning wounds during and after surgery, Ayder Hospital has been relying on donations of clothes which are then cut up and sterilised.

Baby dies from lack of food

The doctor also said a three-month-old baby weighing lesser than the usual birth weight upon birth has suddenly died.

According to the doctor, the mother of the baby was too hungry to produce milk and the hospital treating him in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has not had any supplies for months.

He was sent home from the hospital as he had been gaining weight but then there was not enough food at home, he died on January 13, 2022.

Unfortunately, details of the accounts provided by officials cannot be independently verified as Tigray has been under communication blackout since the war began.

There may be some small relief following the International Committee of the Red Cross managing to fly medical aid into Mekelle for the first time since last September (2021).

As it stands, no UN food convoy has reached Tigray since mid-December, 2021, but the WFP says 100 lorries a day are needed to prevent starvation.

The UN is asking for $337m (£252m) to fund its operation in northern Ethiopia for the next six months.

Tigray’s conflict broke in 2020 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive move against regional forces in the area. He said he did so in response to an attack on a military base housing government troops in the area.

The escalation of the matter came after months of feuding between Mr Abiy’s government and leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling party in Tigray.

In recent months, the federal army has beaten back a rebel advance, but fighting has continued close to the border between the Tigray and Afar regions.

There has been some hope that peace talks could be in the near future.

The newly appointed US special envoy for the Horn of Africa, David Satterfield, recently travelled to Addis Ababa while the African Unions mediator, former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has also met senior Tigrayan leaders.