Abstract
Introduction: The armed conflict has been there in the world since the formation of societies and gets more devastating as humans get modernized. The advancement in technology and creativity have made armed conflict more complicated than it has ever been before. Mankind has been too busy in inventing highly sophisticated, and even intercontinental gun machines to destroy human beings or himself so to speak. This indicates the deterioration of human consciousness which further contributes for the unfolding armed conflict existing across the world. It is possible to see the multidimensional impact of armed conflict and its worst form by remembering what happened to Jewish people by Nazi Germany in Israel. As studies on holocaust survivors indicates, the impact of that war has crossed generations. The other thing which shouldn’t be left as far as armed conflict is concerned is the one which happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan. It is also possible to state about the wars happened in other parts of the world including many African countries like Iraq, Mozambique, Sudan, Uganda and Eritrea. Ethiopia has passed through many war events in history. The Tigray Peoples Liberal Front launched an attack on Ethiopian Government military bases in the Tigray region on November 4, 2020, which migrated into the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara. Hence, there is a greater need to study war related health impacts in Ethiopia, for the presence of highly provocating aggression and mass destructions imposed by the terrorist TPLF in the two regions. Despite its frequent occurrence and many anticipated impacts, armed conflict and its short and long term impacts hasn’t been studied well in Ethiopia. This paper provides some background information about the destructions happened in war affected areas of Afar and Amhara based on different reports made during the war. Furthermore, this review is also aimed to bring information on short and long term impacts of armed conflict reviled by findings across the globe so that the necessary strategies and interventions could be made in war affected, northern parts of Ethiopia by sharing experiences of other countries, and hence the unstudied, and the overlooked yet unfolding impact of this conflict on Afar and Amhara people could be alleviated.
- Objective: To identify the long and short term impact of armed conflict and examining the extent of the problem in war affected areas of northern Ethiopia for the need of urgent reconstruction.
Long and short term impact of armed conflict in Ethiopia: Displacement, sexual violence, psychosocial problems, and trauma related mortality and morbidity, infections, malnutrion, unemployment, chronic non communicable diseases are among the effects war could cause. In afar and Amhara region, many of the population were displaced, faced sexual violation, lost properties. About 1500 health facilities were destroyed leaving the population with no access to health care.
