Health facilities across Amhara and Afar regions have been deliberately vandalized and destroyed, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health announced.

The ministry said more than 1,500 health facilities have been severely damaged in Amhara and Afar states in a deliberate attack on health care, following the territorial gains made by the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the regions a few months ago.

The Ethiopian Minister of Health, Dr. Lia Tadesse, said in a press statement on Monday that 20 hospitals and 277 health centers were practically made nonfunctional in the Amhara region alone.

In addition, 14 hospitals, 153 health centers and 642 health posts had been looted in the Amhara region, she said.

In many health facilities, teams found destroyed equipment, doors and windows partially or wholly shattered, and medicine and patients’ files were scattered across the office, the Minister said.

In Afar State, a hospital, 10 health centers and 38 health posts were vandalized, she said. As a result, it is said that millions of people in the regions are being denied access to basic health care.