Ethiopia

The dead were among a group who had departed two days prior from the port of Bosasso, Somalia, fleeing insecurity or extreme poverty on a smuggler’s boat. They were travelling in extremely harsh conditions across the Gulf of Aden to reach Yemen.

Continued violence and harsh climatic conditions have made living a constant struggle for people in the crisis-affected area of Ethiopia’s Somali region this year. Caught between rebel groups based in the region and government forces intent on quelling the rebellion, the largely nomadic population has become ever more isolated from basic services and humanitarian assistance.

Human smugglers from northern Somalia forced 114 people from a small fishing boat near the village of Al Qashaah on the southern coast of Yemen early on the morning of December 5. The passengers were Somali refugees fleeing war, destitution, and disease. Among them were ten children, including babies.

Since early Monday, December 1, of a presumed 420 people who have arrived on Yemen’s shores after traveling through the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has assisted 361.

Every year, thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians risk their lives crossing the Gulf of Aden to Yemen. Hoping to escape the conflict and extreme poverty in their own countries, these desperate passengers are regularly abused and sometimes killed by the brutal smugglers they pay to get them across.

In May, MSF emergency teams found extremely high numbers of children under age five who were severely malnourished in southern Ethiopia. By May 13, MSF had begun an emergency nutritional intervention that continued to grow along with the increasing numbers of patients.

November, 1, 2008, Awhar, Yemen --A team from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) assisting refugees in the south of Yemen found 39 dead bodies on the shore between Friday, October 31 and Sunday, November 2.

At present, the situation seems to be stabilizing in some of these areas and admissions of severe cases into the MSF centers are decreasing. However, it is not possible to identify a general trend across the country.

Many of the IDPs, traditionally nomadic people, are saying that in the areas they usually inhabit there is currently not enough food or water to survive.

Nearly 40,000 people have received food distributions through MSF nutrition activities in southern Ethiopia over the last four months. Although harvest time has arrived in some areas and is close in others, hungry crowds still gather at the entrance of the centers.

Confronted by rapidly escalating numbers of severely malnourished patients in southern Ethiopia, MSF has set up 51 ambulatory nutrition centers and five hospitalization centers. More than 20,000 patients with severe acute malnutrition have been admitted to the program.

More than 16,700 severely malnourished patients, mostly children, have been cared for in MSF programs in the Oromiya and Southern Nations and Nationalities People's (SNNP) regions of southern Ethiopia.

“One of my children died because we had nothing to eat at home. Today, I am coming to MSF in Tunto to see if my other child can be admitted into the outreach therapeutic program."

"We’ve already admitted more than 100 patients this morning, but a lot of people don’t meet the admission criteria and don’t understand why they’ll receive nothing when they have nothing.”

MSF has treated 11,800 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in the Oromiya and SNNP regions of southern Ethiopia since mid-May. In certain areas, poor rainfall, high food prices, low purchasing power and other factors have led to an alarming situation.

Addis Ababa/Geneva, July 10, 2008 —Unable to respond to the medical needs of populations affected by internal conflict in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, the Swiss section of the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to stop its activities and withdraw from the Fiiq area where it began an assistance program in December 2007.

On May 20, MSF set up a stabilization center in the Shashemene region of southern Ethiopia to provide 24-hour medical care to children with complicated severe malnutrition—those at highest risk of dying who are suffering from additional conditions such as dehydration or malaria. Within days, the center had admitted over 200 children. Here, their caretakers describe the difficulties of the last few months.

Since May 13, MSF has been continually scaling up its activities in areas of southern Ethiopia to respond to the alarming nutritional situation there.

Thousands of people risk their lives every year to cross the Gulf of Aden to escape from conflict, violence, drought and poverty. 

Since MSF started its intervention in the Oromiya region on May 13, more than 700 children with complicated severe malnutrition have been admitted to its three inpatient centers in Shashemene, Ropi, and Senbete Shinquille. MSF is treating more than 1,500 who are not suffering from complications, such as severe dehydration or malaria, on an outpatient basis in eight different clinics around the region.

Two weeks ago, MSF launched a nutritional intervention in some areas of the southern region of Oromiya in Ethiopia, following assessments that showed alarming levels of malnutrition among children under five.

Nairobi, September 4, 2007 – Violence and displacement are threatening the lives of the civilian population in Ethiopia's conflict-affected Somali region, the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today. Despite urgent humanitarian needs, however, two MSF sections have been denied access to the region. MSF is calling on the Ethiopian authorities to immediately allow its teams to provide assistance to people in the region who are facing an increasingly desperate situation.

Cases of meningitis were reported during the first week of January in the Welayita region of the Kendo Kocha and Bolo Sore woredas (administrative units), in southern Ethiopia.

"The Afar nomads were neither receiving quality TB treatment in the local health system, nor were they welcomed there, as they are a marginalized group with a different language and culture," says Dr. John Pratt, a Welsh general practitioner working at the Galaha TB center.

In April of 2003, epidemiologist Brigg Reilley, a program officer for MSF, returned from an assessment of MSF's HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Humera.