The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday that it delivered medical supplies and other emergency goods to Ayder Hospital located in the capital of the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, Mekele, necessary to treat patients wounded as a result of the recent armed clashes in the capital
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2020) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday that it delivered medical supplies and other emergency goods to Ayder Hospital located in the capital of the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, Mekele, necessary to treat patients wounded as a result of the recent armed clashes in the capital.
On November 28, Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) conducted an offensive against the northern region's forces the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and gained full control of Mekele, which used to be the TPLF's headquarters. According to the ICRC, the clashes resulted in residents getting injuries and not being able to receive needed medical services in Ayder Hospital, the main hospital of Mekele, due to the lack of medical supplies in the region.
"A convoy carrying medicines and relief supplies from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS), organized in coordination with the Ethiopian authorities, has reached the Tigray State capital, Mekelle," the statement, published on the ICRC's website, said.
According to the statement, it is the first international aid delivered to Mekele after the humanitarian situation in Tigray Region deteriorated in early November and the capital's hospitals were overloaded with people wounded in recent armed clashes.
The ICRC's regional director for Africa, Patrick Youssef, stressed that the lack of medical supplies forced health care specialists "to make impossible choices of which services to continue, and which services to cut, after going weeks without new supplies, running water, and electricity."
Youssef added that the humanitarian aid delivered by the ICRC would allow the personnel of Ayder Hospital to provide full-scale medical services and it would "make an immediate and lifesaving difference to the people who today are going without access to medical care."
The statement added that the ICRC also delivered emergency goods for roughly 1,000 refugee families, with ICRC teams having distributed relief items in other Ethiopian regions affected by the fighting.
In September, the TPLF, in opposition to the Ethiopian government, asked Addis Ababa for permission to hold regional elections, which were earlier postponed over COVID-19. After getting a rejection, the party organized elections on its own, which the Federal government never recognized as legitimate.
On November 4, the Ethiopian government launched a military operation in Tigray, accusing the TLFP of an attack on a local military base to hijack weapons and arm anti-government militia. According to the UN Refugee Agency, the hostilities forced over 43,000 Ethiopians to flee to Sudan.
