The United Nations and Ethiopia’s Federal Government - in a joint statement Thursday - have called for urgent funding, to respond to food insecurity across northern regions as an estimated 4 million people in Tigray, Afar, Amhara, and parts of the Oromia, Southern and Southwest regions are affected by devastating drought. While the situation in many of these areas is already alarming, there is still an opportunity to avert a serious humanitarian catastrophe, the UN and the Government stressed.
The statement by Shiferaw Teklemariam, Commissioner of the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC), and Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia, said the impact of a drought, driven by the El Niño weather phenomenon, was ravaging communities in Afar, Amhara, Tigray and Oromia, as well as Southern and South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region.
Severe water shortages, dried pastures and reduced harvests were affecting millions of lives and livestock, with reports of alarming food insecurity and rising malnutrition, the officials said.
However, most affected by hunger are vulnerable communities in northern Ethiopia that have yet to recover from the 2020-2022 war, particularly in areas of Tigray, Amhara, and Afar where the recent harvest was severely disrupted leaving households with no or limited food stock, Government and UN acknowledged.
“Malnutrition rates in parts of Afar, Amhara and Tigray and other regions have already surpassed globally recognized crisis thresholds, although the situation is currently not reflective of famine-like conditions,” the statement said.
Even though the situation in many of these areas was already alarming, there was an opportunity “to avert a serious humanitarian catastrophe” through additional funding to urgently scale up and sustain response efforts. More than 6 million people were already being assisted with food and cash across affected areas, but “huge gaps remained”, the officials said.
“To avert a further worsening of the drought impact, additional resources are urgently required to rapidly scale up and sustain response efforts, including in areas where national systems and public infrastructure have been disrupted by conflict,” the statement emphasized.
UN and Ethiopian Government said there is a short window of opportunity to prevent further deterioration, urgent action is required now to allow a redoubling of response efforts.
However, there have been conflicting reports about the severity of the situation in the northern region of Tigray. While both officials have denied that Tigray and other northern regions are on the brink of famine, regional officials have repeatedly warned that large parts of the population were at risk of starvation and death, and that a famine was imminent.
Interim authorities in Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region warned at the turn of 2023/2024 of an impending famine due to drought and the lingering effects of the devastating two-year war in the north of the country, as too little rain continues to fall in northern Ethiopia.
In an interview Friday with the British program “Channel 4 News”, Getachew Reda, leader of the interim regional authority in Tigray, said that people were starving to death in Tigray. He reiterated his call on the Ethiopian Federal Government and the international community to help.
In Tigray, Hundreds of people have reportedly died from hunger in recent months, following the suspension of food aid countrywide. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) halted food aid to Ethiopia in June 2023 after discovering that supplies were not reaching those in need.
But critics say the suspension of food assistance for more than six months has endangered vulnerable populations and made the situation worse for people in Tigray and other regions of the country amid high levels of food insecurity following years of conflict and climatic shocks.
Food distribution resumed across Ethiopia in December 2023. However, according to media reports, only a small fraction of millions of people in war-torn Tigray who were targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in January have actually received it.
Ethiopia continues to face huge humanitarian challenges, with conflict, displacement, drought, floods, and disease outbreaks as the main drivers of need. These challenges are creating a complex and volatile situation affecting more than 20 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024.
A recent assessment regarding the Meher season - the main crop season in Ethiopia - concluded that the number of critically food insecure people in Ethiopia will continue to increase over the next few months, reaching a peak of 10.8 million during the lean season between July and September.
A historic drought and war in northern Ethiopia — which both began in 2020 — in addition to disease outbreaks, and intercommunal conflict have contributed to elevated needs across the country. Although a peace agreement was signed in late 2022 and humanitarian access to Tigray and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara improved, needs remain high due to the two-year conflict.
The prolonged drought, the worst in the Horn of Africa region in modern history, has increased food and nutrition insecurity in Ethiopia. While the Horn of Africa as a whole is finally emerging from three years of devastating drought, the situation is worsening in many parts of northern, southern, and southeastern Ethiopia. In addition, numerous people in other parts of the country are still grappling with five consecutive seasons of absent rainfall.
Moreover, an estimated 1.5 million people have been impacted by severe flooding in Ethiopia since late October 2023, particularly in southern, and southeastern Ethiopia. The most affected regions include Somali - accounting for 80 percent of those affected, South East, Gambela, Oromia, Afar and Sidama provinces.
Relief operations in the country are dangerously and chronically underfunded. The UN 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Ethiopia required US$4 billion. As of January this year, the 2023 HRP was only 34 percent funded.
Further information
Full text: Joint Statement by Ambassador Shiferaw Teklemariam, Commissioner of the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission and Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia on urgent funding needs for the ongoing response to food insecurity across the northern highlands of Ethiopia, released February 1, 2024
https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/joint-statement-commissioner-ethiopian-disaster-risk-management-commission-and-un-resident-and-humanitarian-coordinator-ethiopia-urgent-funding-needs-ongoing-response-food-insecurity-across-northern-highlands-ethiopia-0
Full video: Ethiopia’s 1985 famine would ‘pale in comparison’ to current crisis, says president of Tigray Interim Administration, Interview with Getachew Reda, President of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration, Channel 4 News, aired February 2, 2024
https://www.channel4.com/news/ethiopias-1985-famine-would-pale-in-comparison-to-current-crisis-says-president-of-tigray-interim-administration