ETHIOPIA: Remember Us in Your Prayers, Bishop of Adigrate Appeals as Tigray Situation Worsens
Bishop Tesfassilasie Medhin
Andrew Kaufa smm
Bishop Tesfassilasie Medhin of the Ethiopia’s Eparchy of Adigrate has asked the Church in AMECEA region to remember in their prayers the people of Tigray as the humanitarian situation continues to agonize civilians following the Ethiopia government launched the military attack that has blocked the cities and towns in the region.
Sharing with AMECEA Secretariat on Tuesday December 7, 2020, the Bishop of the Eparchy of Adigrate described the military attack as a siege over the region.
“Th entire region from the four directions is under siege. The total population of nearly eight million people is locked down,” he says and continues, “There is no communication at all, no telephone service, no banking services, no internet services , no electricity.”
Bishop Tesfassilasie Medhin’s concern is supported by other news sources such as Kenya’s Daily Nation of Friday December 11, 2020, the global news agency AFP.
Meanwhile, the United Nations which together with the Ethiopian government have launched a joint mission to assess the humanitarian needs in Tigray where it is reported that thousands of people are leaving the region to seek refuge in Sudan.
Over 140,000 people, according to the international media, are leaving the region to seek refuge in Sudan.
“Some walk for 10 days to reach Sudan; mothers carrying their crying babies out of hunger, afraid of the unknown shocks of war; women traumatized and in tears flowing,” says Bishop Medhin who diocese is right in the middle of the agonized population.
Bishop Medhin further decries the total collapse of the social and government systems in the urban centres.
“According to Red Cross reports, health service providing institutions such as hospitals, health centres are exhausted; sad narrations such as humanitarian catastrophe, terror and fearsome events have become the daily news,” he says.
Worse still, he says, the military attach was launched at harvest time meaning that even though some of the harvest has been destroyed by the swarms of locusts that affected the entire east Africa region, the entire Tigray region’s food supply from the rural areas is affected.
Bishop Medhin’s fear is that people will die in masses if the situation continues in this way for the coming months.
“If no international bodies intervene, this will be the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.” In fact, “This is the worst situation ever the people have encountered in the region: over 1.3 million already displaced; over 4 million people in need of humanitarian aid according to a local media report,” opines the Bishop of Adigrate.
