Ethiopia Humanitarian Crisis

• The Horn of Africa region, including Ethiopia, is facing its worst drought in 40 years following four consecutive failed rainy seasons. In Ethiopia, the drought has affected 24.1 million people.
• 16.5 million drought-affected people needed assistance in the second half of 2022, a significant increase from the 8.1 million people targeted in the first half of the year.
• Around 9.9 million people require food assistance, and 2.9 million children and pregnant and lactating women require nutrition interventions. Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes will likely be widespread in northern, central, southern and southeastern Ethiopia through at least January 2023.
• In September 2022, the UN Children’s Fund estimated that 1.14 million children are at risk of dropping out of school.
• Around 13 million children in Ethiopia have not been enrolled in school for the 2022/2023 academic year. This figure is a 45% decrease compared to last year.
• An estimated 17.5 million people needed agricultural support in 2022 across the country.
• Ethiopia’s economy grew at an average of 11% over the past decade. However, in June, the International Monetary Fund said growth likely fell to 3.8% for 2021-2022 because of the war and a sharp fall in donor financing, among other factors.
• Humanitarian partners have reached up to 76.8% of people targeted with one or several types of assistance since the beginning of 2022.
• As of Jan. 9, Ethiopia has 498,669 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 7,572 deaths. The country also faces increasing cases of measles, chickenpox and malaria and battling a cholera outbreak in Oromia and Somali regions.

In addition to climate-driven emergencies, conflict continues to be the primary driver of humanitarian needs, displacing thousands of people.

A five-month truce ended with renewed fighting between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government toward the end of August 2022. The fighting was a blow to hopes for peace talks between the two parties. Humanitarian convoys into Tigray had been suspended, as well as UN Humanitarian Air Service flights, affecting the movement of staff and operational cash.

On Nov. 12, military leaders from the warring sides signed an accord in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, to implement the truce signed earlier in the month. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Nov. 15 that a convoy of trucks carrying medicine arrived in Tigray’s regional capital Mekele, the first aid delivery by the group to the region since August. In January 2023, humanitarian access to Tigray continued to improve since the peace agreement following months of virtually no humanitarian aid being allowed to enter the region.

Air strikes against Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, killed 10 people on Sept. 13. A kindergarten was among the locations attacked in the air strikes, with the Ethiopian government and the TPLF blaming the other. Even before the air strikes, the hospital in Mekelle was struggling due to electricity outages and limited medical and fuel supplies.

Human Rights Watch said that an armed group killed several hundred Amhara civilians in western Oromia in June 2022 while Ethiopian security forces did little to protect them.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in their Jan. 5 Situation Report: “In Oromia Region, despite an increased humanitarian need, the humanitarian access situation remains very challenging and impacting humanitarian operations in Guji and West Guji zones, with ongoing conflict induced displacement in the region. As of 30 December, an estimated more than 14,000 new IDPs from Oromia arrived in Amhara Region.”

Human rights abuses have been documented and continue. A Human Rights Watch report from December 2021 said Tigrayan rebels fighting Ethiopia’s government carried out dozens of executions against civilians. In another report released in April 2022, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Amhara regional security forces in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone committed widespread abuses against Tigrayans since November 2020.

Aid workers are not immune to violence. In June 2021, three Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff were killed in Tigray. According to MSF, they did not have credible answers for what happened to their staff, and Paula Gil, the President of MSF Spain, was not granted permission to visit Tigray on a visit to the country in July 2022.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to Prime Minister Abiy after the signing of a peace deal with Eritrea that ended two decades of hostilities, issued a rare rebuke of an honoree in January 2022 saying he “has a special responsibility to end the conflict and help to create peace.”

A key impact of conflict on the population is displacement. At the end of November 2022, there were 2.71 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ethiopia. The displacement trend has increased over the last three years but began to decrease during the summer of 2022. However, due to operational constraints IDP data for the Tigray region is unknown, meaning the country’s total figure is likely higher. More than 2.21 million IDPs are in the Amhara region. Many IDPs have sought shelter in urban areas, which places additional pressure on vulnerable families within host communities.

Ethiopia is also one of the largest refugee-hosting countries in Africa, with 880,021 registered refugees and asylum seekers through November 2022. Most originate from South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea.

In addition to conflict resulting in displacement, drought is also causing people to migrate in search of water, pastures or assistance. Climate-fueled drought and flooding across country have displaced thousands of people. From October 2021 to June 2022, more than 345,000 people have been newly displaced by the drought, especially in Somali Region (175,000) and Southern Oromia (163,000).

Ethiopia is grappling with its worst drought since 1981. The March to May 2022 rainy season in the Horn of Africa is likely the driest on record. Nearly 17 million people are now targeted for assistance in drought-affected areas, a significant increase from 8.1 million people in the first half of 2022.

According to UNOCHA in the revised 2022 Ethiopia Drought Response Plan, “The impact of the drought on the livelihoods of affected communities is already devastating and is expected to further worsen in the second half of 2022 increasing the severity of needs. Recent weather forecasts point towards a higher likelihood that the upcoming deyr/hageya rainy season (October – December 2022) will also be below-average, making it an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season.”

Through October 2022, more than 4 million livestock had reportedly died since late 2021, and more than 30 million livestock are emaciated, weakened and at risk of death across the drought-impacted areas. Humanitarian partner’s priority areas for reaching drought affected people as of Nov. 30, 2022, include woredas in southern Ethiopia.

WFP estimates that 20.4 million people currently need food support. Growing levels of food insecurity are due to persistent droughts and the desert locust infestation. Food and nutritional insecurity have soared further because of large numbers of livestock deaths, which remain the main source of nutrition and income for affected communities.

According to UNOCHA, “There are concerns of further worsening of food insecurity in zones where the Belg season harvest is below normal, and in areas where the drought impact is expected to extend to yet another season with a projected fifth consecutive failed rainy season during October-December 2022.”

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), “High levels of hunger and acute malnutrition already exist, and a forecast for a fifth poor season in late 2022 signals the impacts of drought will likely persist through at least mid-2023.”

In eastern and southern Ethiopia alone, nearly 12 million people are estimated to be food insecure, and 8.6 million people are being targeted for water, sanitation and hygiene assistance across the drought-affected areas.

The war in Ukraine has implications on food security in Ethiopia, which relies on imports to meet nearly 25% of the country’s domestic demand for wheat. Prices of fuel, food, fertilizers, steel and iron have increased in international markets since the war began. These price increases may have negative repercussions on production and food prices.

An UN-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain destined for Ethiopia was preparing to set sail from a Black Sea port on Aug. 14, the first shipment of its kind in a program to assist countries facing famine. The food aid arrived in the WFP’s Ethiopia warehouse in early September. In addition to being deployed in Ethiopia, some of the food will be sent to Somalia.

According to the Ethiopia Joint Market Monitoring Initiative (JMMI), prices for critical food items continue to increase. Goat meat saw a 25% increase nationwide from June to September 2022. The JMMI September report found that 16% of older persons found it difficult to visit marketplaces due to movement restrictions.