• Dire conditions sparks a mass exodus of residents from Lalibela Town

Residents of Lalibela are leaving en masse the town which is under the control of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces due to a severe lack of resources, the Reporter wrote. Thousands of civilians who are trapped in increasingly dire conditions are fleeing the religious and pilgrimage town, heading to nearby or remote villages, the paper wrote in Wednesday’s issue.

Since the town was taken over by TPLF forces in early August, infrastructure and basic services have virtually come to a standstill, and food and other grocery items have run out of supply, according to the paper. Residents have described grim scenes as food and water supplies have been exhausted and electricity was cut. Unable to put away enough food and other necessary items to sustain themselves, residents are fleeing the town, adding to some 500,000 internally displaced people already in dire need of humanitarian assistance across the Amhara region. “After a day’s difficult journey on foot from Lalibela to Geregera, I managed to find a bus and reached Bahir Dar on the second day,” said one former habitant of the town witness told the paper.

Further south, thousands of people from Wadla Delanta had been internally displaced in surrounding towns, after TPLF forces intensified their assaults on towns and villages, according to villagers who managed to flee the area. The displaced said that the rebels were taking food from villagers.  

Most of the displaced are sheltered in the woreda’s capital, Wegel Tena, a town one hundred kilometers  northwest of Dessie and under the control of the federal government. Conditions are dire for the people who desperately need food, health care, clothing, and potable water. The limited availability of clean water and medical care has also raised the risk of diseases such as typhoid, they said.