Awot Haileslassie Gebrekidan
The bloody war of Tigray in Ethiopia claimed over 650,000 lives and many left with disabilities with no proper medical support to recover from wounds and scars. The devastating war left many combatants, civilians, women and children wounded and forgotten while others are in their primary follow-up in Camps mainly known as Awash and Meles Academy recovery centers which are prepared for the wounded combatants.
A former health practitioner from Western Tigray, Kiflay Oukbay (31) (Name changed) is one of these. He lost his leg and a sight of his one eye with a drone attack at the war front of Raya-Kobo (border line of Tigray and Amhara Regions). Being worried of dying, he blames his fate being survived, and was a relief if he was done at the battle front. He blames the interim government that can’t provide specialized medical care to its ex-combatants. Kiflom’s pain reminds the deep cost of war and lack of commitment to restore the medical services in the region.
Shumey Berhe (16) a female grade 3 drop-out student in Hagere-selam Primary School, (Degu’a Tembien district) is an amputee teenage explained her physical and mental scars of war associating the bombardment of her school and her family’s home which is nearby the school. She explains the war had cost her leg and time of schooling which she is supposed to be a student at least a grade 8. She don’t want be back to school as the walls and roofs of classrooms reminds the situation of bombardment. This shows the poor attention given to the restoration of facilities and services along with psycho-social reconstruction schemes.
The reporter meets a former combatant of Tigriyan Defense Army named as Wedi Sehabi Aqui (35) in Wukro Maray Hospital (locally known as Du’etar Hospital) attending his medical follow-up. He told us he was a nurse in the Humera Woreda Clinic (a place of disputed areas of Western Tigray and currently occupied by Amhara), and being a combatant he served as a nurse in the army till got shot in his chest, finger and elbow, and his finger and elbow let him with nerve malfunction while his wound in his chest still has uncured internal pain and respiratory problem.
He appreciates the local health professionals for their willingness in helping him blaming the army commanders and their fellows. Wedi Sehabi Aqui was asked whether he was beneficiary of the DDR or not and angrily replied, “I just left the camp to get my families and maintain my wounds better medical treatment on my own cost.
Genuinely, I only lost my finger, and I’ suffering with the respiratory and nerve cases while other similar combatants are still at serious case, but didn’t get enough treatment and some poor guys are suffering a lot. Some like me are returned to their families to find options for medical support for their confirmed and permanent disabilities.”
Though there is a regional center of Ortho-Physiotherapy Centre in Mekelle, which provides a free service to the disabled combatants, the center is challenged with provision of mobility support materials such as crutches and prosthetic limbs.
The Pretoria agreement resulted relief to the people as well as to politicians while lost and forget the disabled ones in hell. Action is needed!!
# Awot Haileslassie Gebrekidan sent this in from Ethiopia
