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's Liberation Front and federal forces on September 23, sparking fears of a return to the civil war of 2020-2022 and putting tremendous strain on the healthcare system. AFP/via Getty Images hide caption

AFP/via Getty Images

"It was a mess, it was chaos, and that continued for almost seven, eight days. Without (cell) network, without electricity," recalls a surgeon in Ethiopia.

On September 24, a two-year ceasefire between rebels and the Ethiopian government began to collapse. As injured people streamed in from the countryside, this surgeon and his colleagues treated as many as they could at a hospital in Mekele, the capital city of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.…