Ethiopia

©MSF

Keywords: Refugees and internally displaced people, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Malnutrition

Crisis update – October 2017: Drought in Ethiopia’s Somali region has led to a humanitarian crisis. With crops failing and cattle dying, millions of people across the country are facing food and water shortages, and people in the Somali region are particularly affected by acute malnutrition and disease outbreaks such as acute watery diarrhoea and measles. MSF is responding to both crises across the region. Read more

Latest info – March 2018:War-weary South Sudanese find emergency medical care

Activities

In Ethiopia, where diseases such as kala azar are endemic, MSF continues to fill healthcare gaps and respond to emergencies and the needs of the growing refugee population.

Somali region

MSF has been supporting Wardher hospital and other health facilities in Danod and Yucub districts in Doolo zone since 2007, with the aim of reducing morbidity and mortality in the area. MSF teams provide both inpatient and outpatient services, including primary and reproductive healthcare, and treatment for malnutrition and tuberculosis (TB). Teams work in 10 outreach clinics in remote locations. MSF also donates drugs and medical supplies. In 2016, in partnership with the Regional Health Bureau, MSF treated around 45,000 patients.

MSF started working in Dolo Ado in Liben zone in 1995, focusing on providing medical assistance to Somali refugees fleeing the drought at home, as well as to the vulnerable host community.

Throughout the year, Dolo Ado reception centre saw 3,075 new arrivals, mostly women and children. The team offers free basic healthcare, nutritional support and routine immunisations. Basic healthcare is also available at three health posts MSF manages in Buramino and Hiloweyn camps. Another team works in the health centre in Dolo Ado town, which is the referral point for the refugees as well as local population, and has an emergency room, maternity and paediatric units, an operating theatre and X-ray facilities, and runs nutrition and TB programmes.

By the end of 2016, there were over 203,887 Somali refugees in five camps in Liben zone.

Teams based at the local district hospital of Fik, in central Somali Region, work in the emergency room, operating theatre, maternity ward and stabilisation centre for severely malnourished children. MSF also supports a TB treatment programme and donates drugs and basic medical instruments to the hospital.

In Degehabur, MSF provides maternal health services, including ante- and postnatal care, family planning and treatment for sexual and gender-based violence. MSF also helped to set up inpatient and outpatient departments, the emergency room and a stabilisation centre for severely malnourished children with medical complications in Degehabur hospital. Mobile clinics in 14 outreach locations offer basic healthcare to people living in remote areas.

Gambella region

Gambella region hosts more than 340,000 South Sudanese refugees from the civil war that has been ongoing since 2013. In collaboration with the government and UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, MSF provides basic and secondary health services in the health centres in Kule and Pugnido camps and Pugnido town, and health posts in Kule and Tierkidi. These services include paediatric care, surgery, nutritional support and HIV/AIDS treatment and are available for both refugees and the local communities. Another team runs a regular mobile clinic for refugees at the entry point of Pagak. In 2016, MSF offered basic medical assistance to 264,000 refugees and local residents, 31 per cent of whom were children under the age of five. 87,000 patients have been treated for malaria in the project locations.

MSF also started its support of Gambella hospital, by donating much-needed supplies and supporting the surgical ward. This is the main referral hospital in the region.

Year MSF first worked in the country: 1984.