What happened, where and when?
The conict that broke out on 4th November 2020 between the Federal Democratic Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) left an estimated 1.8 million people displaced, claimed, more than 600,000 lives according to some estimates, and left Tigray in ruins with many Tigrayans struggling to obtain basic needs and medical care. A telecommunications, electricity, and banking blackout that lasted for roughly two years, eectively cut Tigrayans o from the rest of the world. Furthermore, the distribution of aid was blocked for many months due to road and air transportation blockade, and insecure situation for humanitarian access. Up to December 2022, an estimated 19M million people in Northern Ethiopia, Tigray and neighboring regions facing severe acute food insecurity. Following the signing of peace agreement between the two conicting parties, The Federal Government and TPLF, November 2022, on “permanent cessation of hostilities to end the two-year-long conict including the protection of civilians’ human rights, the resumption of public services in the region, the unobstructed ow of humanitarian supplies to Tigray, and facilitation of the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees to the region”, ERCS requested support of CHF 171 007 from Disaster relief Emergency Fund (DREF) on 15/12/2022, to conduct a detailed multisectoral assessment to inform the response and recovery needs. The DREF was launched, 19/12/2022, MDRET029 https://www.ifrc.org/media/51572, allowing deployment of Surge capacity to support ERCS on assessment, and emergence food support to meet the needs of 5000 most vulnerable in urgent support needs. The initial operational timeframe was three months. Ethiopian Red Cross Society jointly with government and PNS in country conducted and submitted an assessment report which was shared on 15th March 2023, describing the critical needs to scale up assistance especially in newly accessible areas. Following the initial assessments, Operations Update 1 was published on 30th March 2023, https://adore.ifrc.org/Download.aspx?FileId=659583 targeting to scale up emergency food supply, WASH and conducting eVCA, for developing a community consulted long term recovery and rebuilding plan with an additional budget of 822,542 and increase target population from 5,000 people to 50,000 people. The time for implementation of the DREF was scaled up by 6 months from the initial plan of 3 months to make 9 months, with the overall allocation of CHF 993,549.