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SITUATION OVERVIEW
Inter-communal conflicts, climate shocks, and disease outbreaks coupled with the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 continue to negatively affect a significant portion of Ethiopia’s population. An estimated 25.9 million people in Ethiopia are in need of humanitarian aid and 4.2 million were internally displaced by the end of 2021.
A prolonged drought following three consecutive failed rainy seasons since late 2020 is currently affecting 6.8 million people living in Oromia, SNNP, Southwest Ethiopia Peoples, and Somali regions. The drought is compromising fragile livelihoods heavily reliant on livestock - with nearly 1.5 million livestock reported dead across the regions - and causing worsening food insecurity and malnutrition eroding coping strategies for the most vulnerable. While humanitarian partners continue to scale up operations, nearly 175,000 people are estimated to be displaced across 26 most affected zones. Over 100,000 pregnant and lactating women (PLW) are in urgent need of nutritional support, according to UNICEF.
In northern Ethiopia, the Federal Government declared a “humanitarian truce” on March 24, 2022, to facilitate humanitarian assistance into Tigray. Although the situation in Tigray and Amhara regions remained relatively calm during the past month, armed clashes continued in Afar with new displacements and restricted humanitarian access in some areas of Zone 2 in the Afar Region. As reported by the Afar Disaster Prevention and Food Security Programme Coordination Office (DPFSPCO), only 38% of the IDP sites are accessible for humanitarian response. In Tigray, the flow of humanitarian supplies remains severely restricted and insufficient despite the positive administrative steps by the Federal Government announced in January 2022. According to OCHA, only four percent of the total medications required to meet health needs have entered the region with no operational cash cleared since 10 March. In Amhara, regional authorities and humanitarian partners started the relocation of 9,000 IDPs from the North Wollo Zone while partners continue to scale up essential services to both returnees and newly displaced persons. Across the three regions, more than 2.1 million people are estimated to be displaced as a result of conflict and 9.4 million people need humanitarian assistance.