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Failed rains in Ethiopia leave 1.75 million more people in need of food aid – UN

Failed rains in Ethiopia leave 1.75 million more people in need of food aid – UN

With Ethiopia’s major October to December rains having failed, an additional 1.75 million people will require food aid up to June, bringing the number of people receiving food assistance in the Horn of Africa country to 7.25 million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

With Ethiopia’s major October to December rains having failed, an additional 1.75 million people will require food aid up to June, bringing the number of people receiving food assistance in the Horn of Africa country to 7.25 million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

The areas worst affected by the low “meher” or fall rains are in the east of the country, from Afar in the north to the Somali region and the Borena Zone of Oromiya Regional State in the south, OCHA indicated.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that it has delivered more than 6,000 of the 13,000 tons it allocated for the Somali and Oromiya regions, but security for its operations remains challenging.

Drought has devastated the economies of many pastoralist groups in East African countries this year, especially Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya, leaving 11 million people at risk of food shortages. Humanitarian agencies have begun to organize a joint meeting of food security experts in Nairobi, Kenya.

Meanwhile, the reported number of measles cases among the children in the Afar region has grown to 370, with 20 of them fatal so far, and in the Somali region 195, with 14 fatal. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the very low immunization levels and the heightened displacement of people because of the drought could indicate wider transmission than that reported.

UNCEF and the UN World Health Organization (WHO) are planning to immunize 750,000 children in the Somali region in the coming weeks and will then conduct an immunization campaign in Afar.

UNICEF estimated that $18 million would be needed for anti-measles programmes for 12.6 million children across the country.