Patients at the flagship hospital in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region are dying amid shortages of life-saving drugs and oxygen, according to health officials.
At least 60 patients with kidney disease have died since July, the result of a lack of supplies needed for regular dialysis, a doctor at Ayder Hospital in Mekele, Tigray’s capital, told the Associated Press.
Another 81 patients have died “directly because of a lack of oxygen” since the conflict between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, erupted in Nov. 2020, the doctor said.
The doctor spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, has been cut off from the rest of the country since the TPLF recaptured most of the region in late June. Its road networks, banking services and phone lines are all severed, a situation the United Nations has described as a “de
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