Addis Ababa
The medical charity MSF on Monday condemned a “deliberate and generalised” programme of targeting clinics in the conflict-hit Tigray region of Ethiopia.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military campaign in Tigray last year after blaming the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), for attacks on army camps.
Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, leaned on forces from Amhara to secure western and southern Tigray once the TPLF retreated from those areas, and multiple reports have already emerged of dire conditions.
A statement issued Monday by Doctors Without Borders, know by its French initials MSF, said “treatment structures in the Ethiopian region of Tigray were looted, vandalised and destroyed in a deliberate and generalised manner” according to its observers in the area.
The group said it had visited 106 sites between mid-December and early March, and that 70 percent had been looted.
Only 13 percent “functioned normally”, the French-language statement added. “One health establishment in five visited by MSF teams were occupied by soldiers.
In certain cases, this occupation was temporary, while in others, it continued during the visit,” the group said.—APP
