Ethiopia Archives - World Food Program USA

NAIROBI – Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are trapped in a hunger emergency as the region lurches from crisis to crisis: The longest drought in recorded history has given way to rains and flash flooding, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Food and energy prices remain stubbornly high, and the impact of the conflict in Sudan continues to reverberate around the region.

“Conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks: The Horn of Africa region is facing multiple crises simultaneously. After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, flooding has replaced drought, killing livestock, damaging farmland and further shattering livelihoods,” said Michael Dunford, U.N. World Food Programme regional director for Eastern Africa. “And now the outbreak of conflict in Sudan is forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.”

When the region’s long-awaited rains arrived in March, they should have brought some relief. But instead, flash flooding inundated homes and farmland, washed away livestock and closed schools and health facilities. More people were forced from their homes including 219,000 people in southern Somalia.

The last three years of drought have left more than 23 million people across parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing severe hunger. Mortality and malnutrition rates remain unacceptably high. Consecutive failed harvests and high transportation costs have pushed food prices far beyond the reach of millions in the region. A food basket in Eastern Africa in March 2023 cost 40% more than a year ago. In Ethiopia, fuel prices have almost doubled in a year.

It will take years for the region to recover, and humanitarian assistance is a lifeline. Yet limited humanitarian resources are being stretched further still by the conflict in Sudan, which has sent over 250,000 people fleeing into neighboring countries such as Ethiopia and South Sudan where hunger is already high.

Last year, the U.N. World Food Programme and partners launched a rapid scale up of lifesaving assistance in drought-hit Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. This scale-up helped to keep famine at bay in Somalia. But now, the U.N. World Food Programme is facing a funding crunch and is forced to scale back assistance.

“The U.N. World Food Programme’s rapid expansion of lifesaving assistance helped prevent famine in Somalia in 2022. But, despite the emergency being far from over, funding shortfalls are already forcing us to reduce assistance to those who still desperately need it. Without sustainable funding for both emergency and climate adaptation solutions, the next climate crisis could bring the region back to the brink of famine,” said Dunford.

By the end of 2022, the U.N. World Food Programme was distributing food assistance to a record 4.7 million people in Somalia. But in April, funding shortfalls forced the U.N. World Food Programme to reduce this to 3 million people. Without additional funds, the U.N. World Food Programme will have to further reduce the emergency food assistance caseload in Somalia to just 1.8 million by July. This means that almost 3 million people will not receive support, despite their continuing needs.

The U.N. World Food Programme urgently requires $810 million over the next six months to keep lifesaving assistance going and to invest in long-term resilience programs in the Horn of Africa.

Notes for the Editor: High res. photos are available here.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

NAIROBI – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is expanding assistance in the Horn of Africa as levels of hunger soar after back-to-back droughts and the threat of famine looms. Since the start of the year, 9 million more people have slipped into severe hunger across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia – leaving 22 million people struggling to find enough food to eat.

U.N. World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley on Thursday wrapped up a visit to drought-ravaged Somalia, where over 7 million people (close to half the population) are severely hungry and 213,000 are already facing famine-like conditions. Beasley visited the southern city of Baardheere and met families, including malnourished children and their mothers, who have been forced to leave their homes and travel long distances through conflict-wracked areas in search of humanitarian assistance.

“People here have been waiting years for rain – but they cannot wait any longer for lifesaving food assistance. The world needs to act now to protect the most vulnerable communities from the threat of widespread famine in the Horn of Africa,” said Beasley. “There is still no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources needed to save lives and stop people plunging into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation.”

The U.N. World Food Programme is tripling the number of people reached with lifesaving food assistance in the Baardheere area, which hosts tens of thousands of people driven from their homes by drought and conflict.

Across the Horn of Africa, the drought is expected to continue in coming months with a fifth poor rainy season forecast later this year. The U.N. World Food Programme has focused available funds, including critical emergency funding from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, on scaling up lifesaving assistance in areas worst hit by the drought. The U.N. World Food Programme is targeting 8.5 million people across the Horn of Africa, up from 6.3 million at the start of the year.

Across the three drought-affected countries, the U.N. World Food Programme is providing food and cash assistance to families and distributing fortified foods to women and young children to treat spiraling rates of malnutrition and prevent more people among some of the most vulnerable communities slipping closer towards famine. U.N. World Food Programme cash grants and insurance schemes are also helping families to buy food to keep livestock alive or to compensate them when their animals die.

At the start of the year, the U.N. World Food Programme warned that 13 million people in the Horn of Africa were facing severe hunger due to the drought. By mid-year, with the fourth consecutive failure of rains, that number increased to 20 million. Now, the number is projected to rise again to at least 22 million by September. This number will continue to climb, and the severity of hunger will deepen if the next rainy season (October to December) fails and the most people do not receive humanitarian relief. Needs will remain high into 2023 and famine is now a serious risk, particularly in Somalia.

Across the Horn of Africa, livestock are dying and there are acute shortages of water and food. So far 1.1 million people have been forced from their homes by the drought, ending up in crowded camps where the humanitarian community is struggling to keep pace with the demand for food, shelter, and healthcare.

During the 2016/17 drought in the Horn of Africa, catastrophe was avoided through early action. Humanitarian assistance was scaled up before there was widespread hunger, saving lives and averting a devastating famine. The U.N. World Food Programme is doing everything possible to support those most in need, but with no end in sight to this drought, some $418 million is urgently needed over the next six months to meet these increasing needs.

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In Ethiopia, the U.N. World Food Programme aims to provide food and cash relief assistance to 3.3 million people in the drought-hit Somali Region (59% of the population) but is currently only able to reach 2.4 million due to funding shortages. The U.N. World Food Programme’s malnutrition treatment programs are targeting almost 850,000 women and children in drought-affected areas. The U.N. World Food Programme’s first humanitarian shipment of grain from Ukraine is on route to Ethiopia, where it will go towards feeding 1.53 million people for a month.

In Kenya, the U.N. World Food Programme is rapidly scaling up to reach 535,000 drought-affected people by the end of August – up from 108,000 reached in the first half of 2022. The U.N. World Food Programme is also expanding its malnutrition treatment programs to reach 210,000 malnourished children and 105,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in 15 drought-affected counties – up from 8 counties.

In Somalia, the U.N. World Food Programme is continuing to scale up emergency food support to reach 4.5 million people in the coming months. In July, the U.N. World Food Programme reached a record 3.7 million people with lifesaving food assistance, the highest ever reached in a single month, and a significant increase from 1.7 million people supported in April. The U.N. World Food Programme has also nearly doubled targets for its malnutrition treatment program, aiming to provide 444,000 young children and mothers with nutrition support.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

NAIROBI – Almost a month into the current rainy season, desperately needed rains across the Horn of Africa have so far failed to materialize. If these conditions continue, the number of hungry people due to drought could spiral from the currently estimated 14 million to 20 million through 2022, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

With Somalia facing the risk of famine, half a million Kenyans one step away from catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition rates in Ethiopia well above emergency thresholds, time is fast running out for families who are struggling to survive.

“We know from past experience that acting early to avert a humanitarian catastrophe is vital, yet our ability to launch the response has been limited due to a lack of funding to date,” said Michael Dunford, U.N. World Food Programme’s regional director for Eastern Africa. “The U.N. World Food Programme and other humanitarian agencies have been warning the international community since last year that this drought could be disastrous if we didn’t act immediately, but funding has failed to materialize at the scale required.”

The situation has been compounded by the fallout of conflict in Ukraine, with the cost of food and fuel soaring to unprecedented highs. Drought-affected countries across the Horn of Africa are likely to be the hardest hit by impacts of the conflict – the cost of a food basket has already risen, particularly in Ethiopia (66%) and Somalia (36%) which depend heavily on wheat from Black Sea basin countries. The disruption in imports further threatens food security. Shipping costs on some routes have doubled since January 2022.

During the 2016/17 drought in the Horn of Africa, catastrophe was avoided through early action. Humanitarian assistance was scaled up before there was widespread hunger. In 2022, due to a severe lack of resourcing, there are growing fears that it won’t be possible to prevent the looming disaster – and millions will suffer as a result.

The U.N. World Food Programme last appealed for desperately needed funding in February, yet less than 4% of what was needed was raised. Over the next six months, the U.N. World Food Programme needs $473 million to scale-up assistance and save lives across the three countries – Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

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In Ethiopia crops have failed, over a million livestock have died and an estimated 7.2 million people wake up hungry every day in southern and southeastern Ethiopia as the country grapples with the most severe drought since 1981. The U.N. World Food Programme is on the ground, aiming to support 3.5 million people with emergency food and nutrition assistance, school feeding programs as well as climate change adaptation and resilience building activities. Immediate and scaled-up assistance is critical to avoid a major humanitarian crisis in the drought-affected areas of Ethiopia and help communities become more resilient to extreme climate shocks. The U.N. World Food Programme urgently requires $239 million over the next six months to respond to the drought in southern Ethiopia.

In Kenya, the number of people in need of assistance has risen more than fourfold in less than two years. According to the Short Rains Assessment, the rapidly escalating drought has left 3.1 million people acutely hungry (IPC3 and above), including half a million Kenyans who are facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC4). The U.N. World Food Programme urgently requires $42 million over the next six months to meet the needs of the most critically affected communities in northern and eastern parts of the country.

In Somalia, some 6 million people (40% of the population) are facing acute hunger (IPC3 or above) and, alarmingly, there is a very real risk of famine in the coming months if the rains don’t arrive and humanitarian assistance isn’t received. The U.N. World Food Programme is scaling up emergency food and nutrition assistance to support 3 million people by the middle of this year. However, a $192 million relief funding gap over the next six months means that the U.N. World Food Programme has less than half of what it needs to keep scaling up. As a result, the U.N. World Food Programme is having to prioritize both nutrition (where treatment has taken precedence over prevention) and food assistance. The U.N. World Food Programme has launched its largest anticipatory action intervention so far in Africa, equipping vulnerable Somali households in drought hotspots with additional cash transfers and a public information campaign to help them withstand the impact of a potential fourth failed rainy season. The U.N. World Food Programme is also continuing livelihoods, resilience and food systems programs to protect recent development gains and support vulnerable Somalis against droughts and other crises in the long term.

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Nairobi – The Horn of Africa is experiencing the driest conditions recorded since 1981, with severe drought leaving an estimated 13 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing severe hunger in the first quarter of this year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

Three consecutive failed rainy seasons have decimated crops and caused abnormally high livestock deaths. Shortages of water and pasture are forcing families from their homes and leading to increased conflict between communities. Further forecasts of below-average rainfall are threatening to worsen and compound dire conditions in the coming months.

“Harvests are ruined, livestock are dying and hunger is growing as recurrent droughts affect the Horn of Africa,” said Michael Dunford, regional director in the U.N. World Food Programme Regional Bureau for Eastern Africa. “The situation requires immediate humanitarian action and consistent support to build the resilience of communities for the future.”

The drought has impacted pastoral and farmer populations across southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, south-eastern and northern Kenya and south-central Somalia. The impacts are compounded by increases in staple food prices, inflation and low demand for agricultural labour, further worsening families’ ability to buy food. Malnutrition rates also remain high across the region and could worsen if no immediate action is taken.

Across the three drought-affected countries, the U.N. World Food Programme is providing lifesaving food and nutrition assistance to affected communities. Additionally, U.N. World Food Programme cash grants and insurance schemes are helping families buy food to keep their livestock alive or compensating them for their losses.

As needs across the Horn of Africa grow, immediate assistance is critical to avoid a major humanitarian crisis, like the one the world witnessed in 2011 when 250,000 people died of hunger in Somalia. This week the U.N. World Food Programme launches its Regional Drought Response Plan for the Horn of Africa, calling for $327 million to respond to immediate needs of 4.5 million people over the next six months and help communities become more resilient to extreme climate shocks.

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“With the drought, the livestock we have are in danger. Our livelihood depends on them, so we are doing everything we can to keep them healthy. Every morning we lead our cattle to graze at a pasture far away, but even that area is drying up,” said Elamu, a mother of seven in Ethiopia who is impacted by drought.

The U.N. World Food Programme is supporting Elamu with cash transfers through the anticipatory action initiative. After providing Elamu and others crucial information about the upcoming drought, the U.N. World Food Programme provided Elamu $42 each month to help her ready her livestock for the impacts from drought. Elamu is one of almost 3,000 pastoralist households who are receiving cash transfers and one of 16,000 receiving early warning messages from the U.N. World Food Programme to help manage the drought in Ethiopia’s Somali Region.

In Ethiopia, an estimated 5.7 million people affected by severe drought need food assistance. The U.N. World Food Programme aims to support 2.9 million people with food relief in the Somali Region, 585,000 malnourished children and mothers with nutrition treatment, and 80,000 households with mothers or young children with preventative treatment against malnutrition. This emergency response will be complemented by expanding microinsurance support for up to 18,000 at-risk pastoralists. The U.N. World Food Programme is also seeking to add 50,000 children to its school meals program, which currently reaches 87,000 children across 254 schools in other drought affected regions of Oromia and SNNP.

In Kenya, the government declared the drought a national emergency in September 2021 and an estimated 2.8 million people are in need of assistance. The U.N. World Food Programme aims to provide urgent food assistance to more than 890,000 people in the worst affected counties as well as scale up malnutrition treatment and prevention programs for women and children. The U.N. World Food Programme will also extend microinsurance support for small-scale farmers.

In Somalia, the number of acutely food insecure people (IPC 3+) is expected to increase from 3.5 to 4.6 million between February-May 2022 if humanitarian assistance is not received. The U.N. World Food Programme is aiming to scale up its food assistance to support an additional 600,000 people in the first half of this year, reaching a total of almost 2.5 million. To help prevent and treat the implications of drought, the U.N. World Food Programme will also provide nutrition support to women and children. The U.N. World Food Programme is also continuing livelihoods, resilience and food systems programs to protect recent development gains and strengthen vulnerable Somalis against droughts and other crises in the long term.

ADDIS ABABA –  A new food security assessment, released today by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), shows that almost 40 percent of Tigrayans are suffering an extreme lack of food, after 15 months of conflict. Meanwhile, across all three conflict-affected regions of the north more than 9 million people are in need of humanitarian food assistance, the highest number yet.

The Tigray Emergency Food Security Assessment found that 83 percent of people are hungry. Families are exhausting all means to feed themselves, with three-quarters of the population using extreme coping strategies to survive. Diets are increasingly impoverished as food items become unavailable and families rely almost exclusively on cereals while limiting portion sizes and the number of meals they eat each day to make whatever food is available stretch further.

In terms of nutrition, the survey found that 13 percent of Tigrayan children under 5 and half of all pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished, leading to poor pregnancy outcomes, low-birth weight, stunting and maternal death.

“This bleak assessment reconfirms that what the people of northern Ethiopia need is scaled up humanitarian assistance, and they need it now,” said Michael Dunford, the U.N. World Food Programme’s regional director for Eastern Africa.

“The U.N. World Food Programme is doing all it can to ensure our convoys with food and medicines make it through the frontlines. But if hostilities persist, we need all the parties to the conflict to agree to a humanitarian pause and formally agreed transport corridors, so that supplies can reach the millions besieged by hunger.”

In neighboring Amhara region, hunger has more than doubled in five months because the region bore the brunt of recent fighting between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Tigray Forces (TF). More than 14 percent of children under five and almost a third of pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished.

In Afar region, to the east of Tigray, conflict-driven displacement is pushing hunger and malnutrition rates up. Recent health screening data shows malnutrition rates for children under five were at 28 percent, far above the standard emergency threshold of 15 percent. Intensified conflict on the Tigray-Afar border in recent days is expected to force more communities from their homes and deeper into hunger.

The U.N. World Food Programme estimates that on average, crisis-affected families in northern Ethiopia were getting less than 30 percent of their caloric needs in the past months, pushing people deeper into crisis. It’s expected that that constant humanitarian food assistance will be required at least throughout 2022.

Since March, and despite the challenges posed to operations, the U.N. World Food Programme has reached almost 4 million people across northern Ethiopia with food and nutrition assistance. The survey found that when access to Tigray improved during the summer months, humanitarian assistance from the U.N. World Food Programme and its partners kept starvation at bay for those who had been cut off from assistance prior to May.

More recently, however, no convoy has reached Tigray since mid-December. Fighting and insecurity means the U.N. World Food Programme and other humanitarian actors are struggling to reach areas areas isolated by conflict, in conditions that risk the safety of staff and the security of humanitarian supplies.

The U.N. World Food Programme’s northern Ethiopia response urgently requires $337 million to deliver assistance over the next six months, and will begin running out of the capacity to purchase food from February. Across the entire country, the U.N. World Food Programme has an unprecedented funding gap of $667 million to save and change the lives of 12 million people over the next six months.

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Note to Editors
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Additional footage: October 2021, September 2021, June 2021.

Key Findings

The U.N. World Food Programme conducted a food security assessment in Tigray during and just after the main harvest in November 2021. More than 980 families across Tigray were interviewed for the assessment.
The assessment shows levels of food security in Tigray have plummeted over the past 15 months.
4.6 million people are estimated to be food insecure in Tigray (excluding western Tigray), which is 83 percent of the population.
2 million people (37 percent) are severely food insecure (equivalent to IPC 4 and 5 levels.)
In October 2020, prior to the conflict, an estimated 93 percent of people said they had no or little experience of hunger. Now, less than half can say the same (45 percent.)
Levels of food insecurity are most worrying in northwestern, eastern, and central zones of Tigray, where families are suffering from severe to very severe levels of hunger.
Three-quarters of the Tigray population are using unsustainable coping strategies to feed themselves. This includes limiting portion sizes and/or the number of meals per day.
Four in five surveyed households report consuming inadequate diets. People reported almost exclusively relying on cereals for food, showing a lack of dietary diversity.
More than one-third of households were reporting that their main source of food was through community-based support such as direct in-kind donations or loans, purchases on credit or begging. This shows that reliance on social networks and community coping capacities have been critical in maintaining minimal levels of consumption over many months.
The survey found that humanitarian assistance from the U.N. World Food Programme and its partners had provided a much needed injection of food supplies during the summer months, when access was improved in the Tigray region. This lifesaving food assistance was shared among the community and kept starvation at bay for those who had been cut off from assistance prior to May. Among those in pockets of extreme concern, the number of families facing severe hunger nearly halved between May to November (from 27-34 percent in May, down to 14.7 percent in November.)

The Tigray Emergency Food Security Assessment cannot be compared like-for-like with the IPC which was release last June, since the analytical approach of this assessment doesn’t allow for a direct comparison. This is the first reliable food security assessment that has taken place since the IPC.

Similar assessments are planned for Afar and Amhara to determine the impact of the conflict on people’s food insecurity across northern Ethiopia.

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that its lifesaving food assistance operations in northern Ethiopia are about to grind to a halt because intense fighting has blocked the passage of fuel and food.

The escalation of conflict across northern Ethiopia means that no U.N. World Food Programme convoy has reached Mekelle since mid-December. Stocks of nutritionally fortified food for the treatment of malnourished children and women are now exhausted, and the last of the U.N. World Food Programme’s cereals, beans and oil will be distributed next week.

“We’re now having to choose who goes hungry to prevent another from starving,” said Michael Dunford, the U.N. World Food Programme’s regional director for Eastern Africa.

“We need immediate guarantees from all parties to the conflict for safe and secure humanitarian corridors, via all routes, across northern Ethiopia. Humanitarian supplies are simply not flowing at the pace and scale needed. The lack of both food and fuel means we’ve only been able to reach 20 percent of those we should have in this latest distribution in Tigray. We’re on the edge of a humanitarian disaster.”

More than a year into the conflict in northern Ethiopia, an estimated 9.4 million people require humanitarian food assistance. This is an increase of 2.7 million from just four months ago, the highest number yet. At the same time, because of fighting, food distributions are at an all-time low.

The U.N. World Food Programme plans to reach 2.1 million people with food assistance in Tigray, 650,000 in Amhara and 534,000 in Afar Region.

The U.N. World Food Programme also warns it will likely run out of food and nutrition supplies for millions of people across all of Ethiopia from next month due to an unprecedented lack of funding. The U.N. World Food Programme is calling for an additional $337 million to deliver its emergency food assistance response in northern Ethiopia and $170 million to reach those affected by severe drought in Somali region over the next six months.

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ADDIS ABABA – The number of people in need of humanitarian food assistance across northern Ethiopia has grown to an estimated 9.4 million as a direct result of ongoing conflict.

Amhara region – the frontlines of the conflict in Ethiopia – has seen the largest jump in numbers with 3.7 million people now in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Of the people across northern Ethiopia in need of assistance, more than 80 percent (7.8 million) of them are behind battle lines. It is vital that food assistance can cross battle lines to reach families in need.

This week the U.N. World Food Programme delivered food to over 10,000 people in the Amhara towns of Dessie and Kombolcha on behalf of the Joint Emergency Operation (JEOP). These are the first distributions to happen in these towns since they were taken over by Tigray Forces almost a month ago. The U.N. World Food Programme was only granted full access to its warehouses in the region last week.
The nutrition situation across north Ethiopia is deteriorating with screening data from all three regions showing malnutrition rates between 16-28 percent for children. Even more alarmingly, up to 50 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women screened in Amhara and Tigray were also found to be malnourished.
To date the U.N. World Food Programme has reached more than 3.2 million people with emergency food and nutrition assistance across northern Ethiopia, including 875,000 vulnerable mothers and children with nutritionally fortified food in Tigray and Amhara.
United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) flights into Tigray resumed on Wednesday, rotating the first humanitarian workers into and out of the region since a security incident on October 22.
The U.N. World Food Programme needs nearly 270,000 gallons of fuel to be able to reach the 7.8 million people who are currently behind the battle lines and in urgent need of food assistance. Tigray Authorities have made fuel available for the U.N. World Food Programme in Kombolcha – with an initial batch of 195 gallons already on its way to support the scale-up of food assistance in Tigray.
A convoy loaded with 2,200 metric tons of lifesaving food is expected to arrive in Mekelle in the coming days, 35 trucks have arrived so far. In addition, trucks loaded with food from Kombolcha are being sent into Southern Tigray today.
Corridors into Tigray had been closed due to the recent Tigrayan offences on Afar and Amhara, as well as severe disruptions in clearances from Federal Government. Since mid-July, less than a third of the supplies required to meet estimated humanitarian food needs have entered the region.
In Tigray, in this current round of food assistance, the U.N. World Food Programme has reached 180,000 people – just 7 percent of the 2.5 million the U.N. World Food Programme needs to reach.
In Amhara, the U.N. World Food Programme has reached more than 220,000 people with food and nutrition assistance and is scaling up to reach 650,000 people.
In Afar, the U.N. World Food Programme has distributed food to 124,000 people out of its targeted 534,000.
The U.N. World Food Programme’s northern Ethiopia response urgently requires $316 million to deliver assistance over the next six months. Across the entire country, the U.N. World Food Programme has an unprecedented funding gap of $579 million to save and change the lives of 12 million people over the next six months.
Funding shortages have already forced ration cuts for some 710,000 refugees and 2.4 million hungry people in Somali region.

Photos available here.

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ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has completed its first round of food distributions to people impacted by the spread of conflict into Afar and Amhara regions. However, a lack of supplies due to various impediments to the movement of humanitarian aid still sees distributions in Tigray lagging behind.

Since August 15, the U.N. World Food Programme has delivered food to almost 300,000 people in Amhara and Afar. The second round of food distributions has been ongoing in Tigray since May 27 and more than 2.4 million people have been reached with food assistance in the northwest and parts of southern Tigray.

“Anecdotal reports from all three regions suggest that food insecurity is rising as families flee from their homes and have their livelihoods destroyed,” said Michael Dunford, the U.N. World Food Programme’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa.

“In Tigray, the IPC released in June estimated that up to 400,000 people would be facing famine-like conditions by now and as teams struggle to get enough food assistance into the region the situation is becoming increasingly dire. In Afar and Amhara we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes and have their livelihoods destroyed. It is absolutely vital that we have the full cooperation and support of all parties to the conflict so that we can reach all affected populations with urgently needed food assistance before we have a humanitarian catastrophe on our hands across all of northern Ethiopia.”

WFP northern Ethiopia operations:

An additional 1.7 million people are facing emergency levels of hunger in Afar and Amhara regions, where over 840,000 people (700,000 in Amhara and 140,000 in Afar) have been displaced due to the current conflict, according the government estimates.
Round 1 distributions have been completed in Amhara, reaching more than 210,000 people with beans, cereals and vegetable oil. This includes families who have been displaced due to the conflict and those who have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed.
The U.N. World Food Programme has also been able to transport more than 2,200 metric tons of food assistance on behalf of partners to Wag Hamra and North Wollo zones of Amhara. However, deliveries to communities located beyond lines of conflict have not been possible so far, threatening to cause a further deterioration in food security for families in those areas.
In Afar, the U.N. World Food Programme is close to completing round 1 distributions, reaching an initial 80,000 people impacted by the conflict. This number may increase to more than 500,000 people in the next round, subject to a formal request from the Government.
As of September 24, the U.N. World Food Programme has reached more than 2.4 million people with emergency food assistance across Eastern, Southern and Northwestern zones of Tigray. In the third round of distributions, the U.N. World Food Programme will reach nearly 2.7 million people after taking over Shire town and Tahtay Koraro districts in Northwestern Zone from its non-governmental food partners.
In September, the U.N. World Food Programme has so far reached almost 200,000 children under 5, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women, with nutrition assistance across 39 of the 71 targeted woredas in Tigray.
In Shire town in the Tigray region, teams have only been able to provide 4.5 pounds of beans per person for the food distribution due to unavailability of cereals and oil. Additionally, round 3 distributions, which were due to start early July, have not yet begun due to a lack of food inside Tigray.
There has been some positive news on the movement of humanitarian aid into Tigray in recent weeks. Five convoys – 171 trucks – entered Tigray between September 5-29, carrying a combined total of 6,150 metric tons of food and nutrition supplies. This is enough to feed more than 360,000 people for one month. Despite these recent convoys, only 11 percent of the humanitarian aid needed has entered the region. Additionally, as of September 30, more than 90 commercial trucks have exited Tigray and are now available for the movement of humanitarian aid into the region.
Fuel stocks in Tigray are running critically low. Fuel is vital to keep operations running and facilitating the movement of humanitarian aid into and across the region. We need 200,000L of fuel entering Tigray each week to keep operations running.
Across Ethiopia, the U.N. World Food Programme aims to reach 11.9 million people in 2021 with food, nutrition and cash support and delivering activities to boost communities’ self-reliance and food security.
The U.N. World Food Programme needs $184 million to continue to scale up its response in northern Ethiopia to save lives and livelihoods to the end of the year. For all activities under its Country Strategic Plan, the U.N. World Food Programme has a funding shortfall of $426 million. Additional funding is vital to allow the U.N. World Food Programme to keep saving and changing lives in Ethiopia.

Video footage of Amhara operations here

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ADDIS ABABA –  As conflict spills across Northern Ethiopia, forcing 300,000 people from their homes and 1.7 million into hunger in Afar and Amhara provinces, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced an unprecedented funding gap of $426 million across its operation in Ethiopia and appealed for funds to meet the needs of up to 12 million people this year.

This month the U.N. World Food Programme started delivering emergency relief food assistance to communities in regions bordering war-torn Tigray. In coordination with Ethiopia’s Federal and Regional Government authorities, the U.N. World Food Programme plans to immediately reach 530,000 people in Afar and 250,000 people in Amhara, but will scale up as needs increase and if funding is received.

Meanwhile in Tigray, food security continues to worsen as the U.N. World Food Programme and its partners struggle to scale up and meet the urgent food needs of 5.2 million people across the region. Food stocks held by the U.N. World Food Programme and partners had been almost entirely depleted until yesterday, when the first convoy for over two weeks entered the region. The U.N. World Food Programme-led convoy of over 100 trucks carried 3,500 metric tons of food and other lifesaving cargo – including fuel and health and shelter items.

“The U.N. World Food Programme welcomes the collaboration from federal and local authorities in Afar to ensure our convoy finally made it safely into Tigray,” said Michael Dunford, the U.N. World Food Programme’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa. “But much more is needed and this momentum must be sustained otherwise we cannot hope to deliver enough food to save millions from falling deeper into hunger.”

The U.N. World Food Programme teams on the ground can now start delivering the next round of food distributions in Tigray. The U.N. World Food Programme will reach up to 3 million people in the region, an increase of 900,000 since it took over operations in two northwestern Zone districts – Shire town and Tahtay Koraro – from its non-governmental food partners.

“Time is running out for millions across Northern Ethiopia and if we don’t get additional funding right away we will be forced to cut rations or, even worse, halt distributions to some 4 million people we’re trying to reach in Afar, Amhara and Tigray in the coming months,” added Dunford.

Aside from the escalating fighting in the north of the country, food security for millions across the whole of Ethiopia is under threat due to an unprecedented funding gap for U.N. World Food Programme operations in the country. Across Ethiopia, over 13.6 million people are estimated to be hungry due to the prolonged combined effects of drought, flooding, desert locust invasions, market disruptions and high food prices, and the COVID-19 pandemic – all exacerbated by the recent conflict spreading across northern parts of the country.

The U.N. World Food Programme is calling for an additional $426 million to expand its emergency food assistance response over the next six months as well as provide long-term food security solutions for people as they enter the yearly hunger season.

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Key Findings

HAITI IN CRISIS

HAITI IN CRISIS