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Lack of Rain Leaves 1.75 Million More Ethiopians in Need

NEW YORK, 16 January (OCHA) - Failed meher rains have left Ethiopia's southern Somali region and the Borena zone of Oromiya region confronting an escalating humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

At the end of the principal season of rains, some 1.75 million people are estimated to require assistance from January to June 2006, above and beyond the 5.5 million people already receiving food assistance in the country. There are also reports of a critical humanitarian crisis in the country's Afar region, where pastures have dried and many communal grazing lands have become dust bowls.

Drought has affected countries throughout Eastern Africa this year, including Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. Last month, the Government of Kenya, jointly with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United States Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-Net), stated that more than 2.5 million people would require humanitarian assistance in 2006.

Meanwhile, more than 2 million people in Somalia are in need of aid, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), primarily in the country's southern regions. In Djibouti, severe drought conditions have worsened the national food security situation; nearly 150,000 people - almost one fifth of the population - are estimated to be facing food shortages.

Throughout the region, more than 11 million people are at risk, which has prompted humanitarian agencies operating in the region to call for a joint meeting of food security experts in Nairobi, Kenya.

In response to the rising threat in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Federal Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Agency (FDPPA) has taken the lead in coordinating humanitarian assistance, convening a meeting of United Nations agencies, donors, non-governmental organizations and emergency taskforce representatives from Government ministries.

The WFP has said that the availability of carry-over supplies in the region means that food supply will not be an immediate problem. However, logistics and security challenges to delivery require continued attention. For Ethiopia's Somali and Oromiya regions, the WFP has already allocated nearly 13,000 metric tonnes of food assistance, in conjunction with the FDPPA, and has delivered more than 6,000 metric tonnes to the affected areas.

Also of concern is the growing number of new measles cases in the country's Somali and Afar regions. In Afar, more than 370 cases, including 20 fatal cases, were reported from December to October 2005. In the Somali region, 195 cases, 14 fatal, were reported in the same period. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that very low immunisation levels in Somali region, combined with population displacement, which has been exacerbated by the drought, could indicate wider transmission throughout the region. The impact of the drought on children's health could also increase mortality rates from the disease.

In response, more than 750,000 children in the Somali region will be immunised against measles in the coming weeks. The UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) are currently drawing up a vaccination plan for the Afar region. To avoid further outbreaks in 2006, the UNICEF estimates that $18 million will be needed for anti-measles programmes for 12.6 million children throughout Ethiopia.

The weather in ethiopia is usually sunny and dry, with the short or belg rains occurring February-April and the big or meher rains beginning in late June and ending in mid-September. [Wikipedia]

Source: United Nations