Ethiopia: OUR OASIS OF HOPE scarred by armed conflict

"We want to build an oasis of help and recovery for the girls and women who have been maltreated by female genital mutilation," explained Rüdiger Nehberg in 2010 at the start of what was a huge project for our small organization: the Danakil Gynaecology and Obstetrics Clinic in Ethiopia.

Project coordinator Dennis Risse in the midst of the devastation, here the workshop.

In November 2020, an armed conflict broke out between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian central government in the Tigray region (Danakil Desert) in northern Ethiopia. Assault rifles, grenade launchers, rockets, tanks, casualties - hundreds of thousands of people fled. The humanitarian emergency began. In January 2022, the fighting reached TARGET's gynecology and obstetrics clinic in the neighboring Afar region. The clinic was evacuated in time*.

In June, we dared to send a small TARGET team to the clinic to inspect the destruction. "What we have created with our hands in five years of construction lies in ruins before us - a picture of pure, wanton destruction that particularly affects the girls and women of Afar," says project coordinator Dennis Risse.

We are doing everything we can to support the girls and women even in these extreme times. The remaining medical team is providing gynecological care to the girls and women in the surrounding local health posts as best they can under the circumstances. With the remaining two vehicles, they can take patients to a health center or provide help directly on site. Patients are also driven to the nearest functioning hospital. It is 550 kilometers away.

You can find out more about the clinic situation and TARGET's work to end female genital mutilation in the Annual Letter 2022.

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Women in Need and TARGET's medical team in the humanitarian crisis area of Ethiopia

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An ambulance trip: From conflict area to hospital.