Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise in Ethiopia as ongoing conflict, regional instability, displacement, drought and economic shocks leave millions without enough food, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. WFP warned that its life-saving response has been severely hampered by critical funding shortfalls, with 3.6 million of the most vulnerable people at imminent risk of losing food assistance.
© WFP/Michael Tewelde
According to WFP, more than 10 million people across the East African country are at risk of hunger and malnutrition, including three million who have been displaced by conflict and extreme weather conditions.
Malnutrition rates in Ethiopia are alarmingly high, with 4.4 million pregnant and lactating women and children in need of treatment. In parts of the Somali, Oromia, Tigray and Afar regions, child wasting has exceeded the emergency threshold of 15 percent.
Humanitarian needs in Ethiopia are compounded by conflicts in neighboring countries. Ethiopia is one of the largest refugee hosting countries in Africa, with over 1.075 million refugees and asylum seekers as of April 2025, mainly from South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea.
Following the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, Ethiopia has received over 70,000 forcibly displaced people from Sudan, while rising tensions in South Sudan have forced tens of thousands to flee across the border since February 2025.
WFP is already assisting 800,000 refugees in Ethiopia, including 100,000 Sudanese refugees, some of whom fled Sudan before war broke out two years ago. Escalating insecurity in northeastern South Sudan could push tens of thousands more refugees across the border.
Poor rainfall expected in southeastern Ethiopia through May threatens another drought in the Somali region as families are still reeling from the 2020-2023 drought. The severe drought, the longest in the country's modern history, intensified food and nutrition insecurity in eastern, northern and southern Ethiopia.
WFP said it provided food and nutrition assistance to more than three million people in the first quarter of 2025, with 80 percent of rations going to displaced and severely food insecure Ethiopians and 60 percent to up to one million refugees.
This year, WFP has also treated 740,000 children and pregnant or lactating women for malnutrition and provided 50,000 families with fresh food vouchers.
The UN agency warns that operations are now at a breaking point and without urgent new funding, 3.6 million of Ethiopia's most vulnerable people will lose access to life-saving food and nutrition assistance in the coming weeks. WFP will be forced to stop treating 650,000 malnourished women and children in May due to a lack of funding.
“What is particularly important now is that our nutritious foods are running out,” Zlatan Milisic, WFP Country Director in Ethiopia, told journalists in Geneva on Tuesday.
“So, we are stopping that program unless something comes really fast, and we are looking, and we are hopeful, but nothing has come yet.”
The humanitarian organization had planned to reach 2 million mothers and children with life-saving nutrition assistance in 2025.
WFP is also warning that if additional funding is not received and the number of people fleeing violence in South Sudan continues to rise, cash and in-kind food assistance for up to one million refugees will end in June.
The UN agency said that in Ethiopia, it faces a funding shortfall of $US 222 million between April and September 2025.
Milisic said the teams, logistics and capacity were in place, but what was lacking were the resources to act on the scale the crisis required. Donors were urged to step up their support to enable WFP to continue delivering life-saving assistance and prevent the humanitarian emergency from deteriorating further.
While the overall humanitarian situation in Ethiopia has improved significantly over the past two years, millions of Ethiopians remain displaced by conflict, insecurity and climate-related shocks such as droughts, floods and landslides, as well as other natural disasters such as earthquakes. Ethiopia faces multiple drivers of instability.
Years of drought and conflict have left millions of Ethiopians without enough to eat. In 2025, humanitarian needs remain significant, mainly due to ongoing conflicts, particularly in the Amhara and Oromia regions, as well as climate shocks and recurrent health emergencies such as malaria and cholera outbreaks.
As of mid-2024, an estimated 4.5 million people were still internally displaced in Ethiopia, while 3.3 million IDPs had returned to their areas of origin. The main causes of displacement were conflict, drought and other climate-related extreme weather events.
People in northern Ethiopia are still recovering from the two-year war that erupted in November 2020 and lasted until October 2022. Although peace returned to the regions in late 2022 with the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) and improved humanitarian access to Tigray and neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, needs remain high due to two years of conflict.
Pervasive insecurity in the northeastern African country continues to hamper humanitarian access, particularly in parts of the Amhara and Oromia regions.
In Ethiopia's Amhara region, clashes continue between government forces and the regional Fano militia, which fought on the side of the government during the conflict in the Tigray region. The fighting between the federal government and the armed group was sparked in April 2023, when the government asked the militia to join the country's police or military following the Tigray peace agreement.
WFP said on Tuesday that the ongoing violence and insecurity in Amhara is disrupting its humanitarian operations and threatening its ability to reach more than half a million vulnerable people in the region. According to the UN agency, criminal activities such as car hijackings, threats and theft are on the rise, posing serious risks to the safety of staff and affecting the delivery of life-saving assistance.
Meanwhile, ongoing hostilities in western Oromia continue to displace civilians and affect humanitarian operations. Tensions and violence in the Oromia region have resulted in an alarming number of casualties and an extremely worrying overall situation.