“Number of displaced still increasing every day”: Salesians in Ethiopia amid Tigray Crisis

“Since the war broke out from 4th November 2020 and still is going on, many people have lost their lives, lost properties, many are homeless and thousands of people have been fleeing and escaping the bombing and shooting and become refugees or internally displaced people within their own country,” SDB members say in the report.

In the report published by Agenzia Info Salesiana, the information service of the Salesians, the SDB members say, “(The) Rich and (the) poor are at our gate every day, begging for food in order to survive.”

They recall the events of the evening of 20 November 2020, the day the fighting started in Adwa, when “many dead bodies were lying on the streets and many wounded people tried to escape the war.”

“These months were dark moments as for more than two months the people did not have electricity, water, networks, food etc., ... we thank God that we have the borehole in our compound that is able to receive thousands of people, coming and taking water every day since early morning by running the generator,” SDB member ministering in Ethiopia’s Adrigat Diocese add.

They have, in partnership with Salesian Sisters and the Missionaries of Charity Nuns, visited five centers hosting the displaced people in the area and offered “immediate response to help those in need,”

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Members of the three Missionary Congregations are baking between 2,200-2,600 loaves of bread every day to feed the displaced people in Tigray, the report indicates.

“The SDBs are also giving food items to the needy, blind, elderly people around us,” the Salesians say in the March 15 report.

They add, “We are also providing to the center for displaced people food items, non-food items so that they may have enough access to the basic needs of a human being for a decent living.”

“We are grateful to God for all the grace, blessings, courage and strength that He is bestowing upon us to make our journey in this challenging and difficult times that we are facing in Adwa,” members of the St. John Bosco-founded Religious Institute further say in their March 15 report.