NAIROBI — In the largest hospital in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a child wounded in an air strike bled to death after doctors ran out of gauze and intravenous fluids. A baby died because there were no fluids for dialysis.

Doctors at the Ayder Referral Hospital in the regional capital Mekelle, which is under the control of Tigrayan forces fighting the central government, told Reuters by phone the lack of supplies is largely the result of a months-long government aid blockade on the northern region.

“Signing death certificates has become our primary job,” the hospital said in a Tuesday presentation prepared for international aid agencies and shared with Reuters.

Notes and documents in the presentation included case summaries, lists of missing drugs and medical supplies, and photographs of wounded and malnourished patients. Reuters also interviewed three doctors, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution by Ethiopian officials.

The doctors identified 117 deaths and dozens of complications, including infections, amputations and kidney failure, which they said were linked to shortages of essential medicines and equipment. They did not provide dates for most of them.

War erupted in November 2020 after relations nosedived between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party that dominated national politics until Abiy’s appointment and controls most of the region. The conflict has killed thousands of people and driven millions more from their homes.

Government spokesman Legesse Tulu on Monday reiterated Ethiopia’s position that no blockade had been imposed. He did not respond to questions about the shortages reported by Ayder.

“What is happening in Tigray currently is the sole responsibility of TPLF,” Legesse told Reuters.

He accused the TPLF of looting equipment and medicines at more than a dozen hospitals and 100 health centers when its forces invaded the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar last year before being pushed back in December.

Ethiopia’s health minister and a TPLF spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. The TPLF has previously denied looting health facilities and blamed the government for shortages of humanitarian supplies.

The United Nations first sounded the alarm about lack of access to Tigray in December 2020, when government forces took control of Mekelle after battling rebellious forces loyal to the TPLF for three weeks.

Access for its trucks has ebbed and flowed since then but declined significantly after government forces withdrew from most of the region at the end of June, according to reports by U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA.

Abiy’s government has repeatedly rejected accusations by the United Nations and other aid organizations that it is preventing humanitarian supplies from reaching Tigray

The government has restricted media access since July. Some aid agencies have been barred, and most communications to the region are down.

Two international aid agencies reached by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment about the Tuesday presentation, which was issued on behalf of all of Ayder hospital’s staff.

‘De facto blockade’

A senior doctor at Ayder told Reuters that about 80 to 90 percent of Tigray’s hospitals and clinics were not functioning. The United Nations says more than 90 percent of the region’s 5.5 million people need humanitarian assistance and 400,000 are living in famine-like conditions.

Some supplies reached Tigray’s main cities during the first eight months of the conflict, when the region was under government control. But little food and almost no medical supplies have arrived since the government pulled back in late June, doctors said.

They blamed what U.N. and U.S. officials have described as a de facto government blockade. The United Nations estimates at least 100 trucks of aid must enter Tigray each day to keep up with needs. Less than 12 percent of that has arrived since July, OCHA said last week.

Read more: Blockade killing hospitalized children in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray, doctors say

Source: Reuters