Ethiopia

In Ethiopia's Tigray region, 5.2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. USAID is providing life-saving aid, including more than 206,000 metric tons of food.

Catholic Relief Services

Key Developments

Following the expansion of hostilities from Ethiopia's Tigray Region to neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, humanitarian needs across northern Ethiopia continue to increase rapidly.

Less than 10 percent of the number of trucks of humanitarian cargo needed to sustain life-saving relief operations have arrived in Tigray since July, as medicines and fuel are blocked from entering the region and cash needed to sustain the response is heavily restricted, the UN reports.

Complex Emergency

Populations across areas of Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, and Somali regions will likely continue to experience Crisis—Integrated Food Security Phase Classification 3—levels of acute food insecurity through January 2022 as a result of continued conflict and drought. 

As of April, more than 4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) were sheltering across Ethiopia, nearly double the 2.1 million IDPs identified at the beginning of 2021.

Insecurity related to the ongoing crisis in Tigray Region is generating humanitarian needs elsewhere in Ethiopia, with violence displacing 54,000 people in Afar in mid-July.

Background

Ethiopia is experiencing its second severe drought in less than two years. Insufficient rainfall during the 2017 rainy season has led to severe water shortages, catastrophic livestock losses, and failed crops throughout the country. The drought in southern Ethiopia comes as the country’s north and central highland communities continue to recover from a severe drought in 2016 triggered by multiple consecutive seasons of below-average rainfall and the effects of the 2015/2016 El Niño climatic event. In August 2017, the Government of Ethiopia estimated that 8.5 million people in the country would require humanitarian assistance through December, primarily due to increased drought-related needs in southern and southeastern parts of Ethiopia.

In addition to drought, populations across Ethiopia face other challenges that contribute to sustained humanitarian needs and an ongoing complex emergency—including above-average food prices, disease outbreaks, localized intercommunal conflict, seasonal flooding, and limited access to health and water, sanitation, and hygiene services.