MSF warns of increasing death rates in resettlement camps

Death rates among children at resettlement camps in northwestern Ethiopia have reached “catastrophic” levels, the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland (MSF) warned on Thursday. It said 32 children – all under five years old - had died at one resettlement camp in Amhara region. The warning comes just days after the Ethiopian government took international donors on a three-day helicopter tour of some resettlement sites in three regions of the country. According to government-controlled media, ambassadors and representatives of international organisations described the resettlement programme as “encouraging”. The government has launched a massive resettlement plan – under which some two million people will move in three years – and appealed for US $217 million to fund the scheme. Resettlement is a central plank of the government’s fight to address the increasing dependence on international food aid to help feed the spiralling 70 million population. But MSF warned that despite preparations by local authorities, the health situation at two sites where they work has worsened – fuelling high mortality and malnutrition rates. Tach Armachaho, a district where families have been settled, is afflicted by a little known but deadly disease called leishmania which is transmitted by sand flies, said MSF. The World Health Organisation has warned that the disease is exacerbated by the HIV virus and is an “extremely serious, new disease and it is increasingly frequent”. MSF said four cases of the disease had occurred among the “non immune” settlers - which it described as worrying given the high fatality rate if not treated. It also revealed that a nutritional survey carried out in late October showed that at least 69 people had died over the last six months in one resettlement camp. “Thirty-two were children under the age of five. This equates to a child rate of 5.5 per 10,000 per day - a major catastrophe against any benchmark indicator,” said MSF. “The lack of access to the area year round, especially in the rainy season, has exacerbated an already dire situation,” it added. “Poor access to drinking water due to water pumps breaking down and not being fixed has forced the population to rely on river water, resulting in high rates of diarrhoea." MSF, which has set up an emergency feeding centre, said it had notified the government of the crisis. The authorities have promised to send food rations for the next two months.