Seven days of chaos in the ER: How this country’s healthcare system is unraveling

Betelhem, 10, lies on a bed next to her father at Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, Ethiopia, on October 6, 2026. She was injured during heavy artillery shelling in Alamata. Fighting broke out between the rebel Tigray People

Renewed fighting has pushed Ethiopia’s healthcare system close to collapse: “The whole emergency (room) was flooded with war trauma patients,” one surgeon says of a brutal week in September.

(Image credit: AFP)