12.5 million people are now in need of food assistance. The Cholera outbreak which mainly affected Somali region is currently spreading to Northern Ethiopia.
BY RELIEF WEB
12.5 million people are now in need of food assistance. The food insecurity and malnutrition situation in the drought affected areas continues to deteriorate, in particular in Somali region.
Food assistance was delayed for the past months due to pipeline breaks and logistics constraints, but has recently picked up and a national integrated relief plan for food and cash was elaborated until the end of the year.
Integrated food security, nutrition and wash/health interventions are essential to bring down the spiking levels of acute malnutrition.
In addition, the cholera outbreak which mainly affected Somali region is currently spreading to Northern Ethiopia while remaining a high risk in areas where drought and conflict induced displacement is occurring.
Moreover, since the beginning of September, the tensions along the Oromia and Somali regional border were intensifying and resulting in significant additional numbers of internally displaced people (IDP’s).
As per various sources of information, these numbers vary from NDRMC’s reported 210,727 – 280,071 which was so far indicated in Emergency Tracking Tool implemented by IOM.
Most of these IDPs require urgent access to emergency humanitarian services which are currently limited or non-existing in most of the areas of displacement.
Ethiopia now hosts almost 900,000 refugees. While Ethiopian’s open door policy remains in place, the refugee response is only 25% funded, which results in food ration cuts and overall in a very limited response that does not always meet humanitarian minimum standards.
Due to the insufficient food assistance, the malnutrition rate remains above the emergency threshold in all South Sudanese refugee camps.
