More than six million people in drought-hit areas of eastern and southern Ethiopia will need “life-saving” assistance this year, the UN’s emergency response agency said in a new report.
The drought is adding to the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, where the war between government forces and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Army (TPLF) in the north of the country has already left millions there in desperate need of aid. The drought in the Somali, East and South Oromia regions is having a “devastating impact on the lives and livelihood of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities living in the area after the third consecutive failed rainy season”, the UN Of-fice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement posted online this week.
It said more than 6.4 million people in the af-flicted areas were estimated to require food assis-tance this year, and that while the Ethiopian gov-ernment and its humanitarian partners were working to tackle the crisis, “the response is not commensu-rate with the dire need.—AP
