Related Articles
Ahram Online
“Over six million people in drought-hit areas of Eastern and Southern Ethiopia will need life-saving assistance this year”, the UN’s emergency response agency said in a new report on Wednesday.
The drought is adding to the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, especially where the war between government forces and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Army (TPLF), That war left millions in desperate need of aid.
“Droughts in the Somali, East and South Oromia regions are having a devastating impact on the lives and livelihood of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities living in the area”, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in a statement earlier this week.
About three million people in Somali and South Oromia are suffering from water shortages, while an unknown number have been forced out of their homes.
“Altogether, about 200,000 children and pregnant or lactating women were suffering moderate malnutrition and 14,000 children suffer acute malnutrition. Several hundred thousand livestock deaths were also reported”, the UNOCHA added.
In November, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said; “the number of people facing hunger across Northern Ethiopia had surged to 9.4 million in Tigray and the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar”.
In Tigray itself, which is under a de facto blockade, “hundreds of thousands of people are living in famine-like conditions”, the United Nations said.
