Eastern Africa: Humanitarian Snapshot (As of 05 Mar 2024)

In Eastern Africa, humanitarian needs continued to be driven by severe climate events (droughts and floods), conflicts, disease outbreaks, and economic shocks throughout 2023 and into 2024. These have pushed millions of people into displacement, acute food insecurity and malnutrition, public health emergencies, and destitution. By February 2024, over 48.2 million people, mainly in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan were experiencing severe hunger. El Niño conditions have led to wetter-than-normal conditions triggering flooding in the last quarter of 2023 in most parts of the region, further exacerbating the situation of communities that were yet to recover from the lingering effects of the severe and prolonged 2021- mid-2023 drought (the worst in 40 years).

By the end of February 2024, the region hosted one of the world’s largest displacement crises due to floods, drought, conflict, and violence. At least 17 million people are internally displaced, while some 5.1 million are refugees or asylum seekers. Conflict is the major driver of displacement with more than 6 million people uprooted from their homes in Sudan, as of January 2024, and 4.6 million people internally displaced in Ethiopia. Multiple disease outbreaks including cholera, measles, and malaria have also been reported in the region, particularly in the context of acute food insecurity and malnutrition, and in overcrowded areas with limited access to water, sanitation, and hygiene and poor living conditions. As of February 2024, over 80,000 cholera cases and nearly 34,000 measles were reported across the region including in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Tanzania.