Hospital in Ethiopia’s Tigray struggles to treat patients

Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Doctors at the flagship hospital in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region say patients are dying amid shortages of life-saving drugs and oxygen. A doctor at Ayder Hospital in Mekele, Tigray’s capital, told The Associated Press that more than 60 patients with kidney disease have died since July, the result of a lack of supplies needed for regular dialysis. The hospital’s challenges highlight a wider humanitarian crisis in the region. 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 U.N. has described as a “de facto blockade” by Ethiopia’s federal government.