{"id":838306,"date":"2026-10-25T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=838306"},"modified":"2026-10-25T21:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:40:00","slug":"drought-now-affects-3-5-million-ethiopians-as-wfp-says-it-is-short-of-money-to-feed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/838306","title":{"rendered":"Drought now affects 3.5 million Ethiopians as WFP says it is short of money to feed them"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drought linked to El Ni\u00f1o has affected 3.5 million people in six regions of Ethiopia, the Red Cross says, while the World Food Programme says it has only 46 percent of what it needs.<\/p>\n

The figures come from two reports published this week. The first, a drought assessment by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) reported by The Reporter, says the failure of both the Belg rains and the main Kiremt season from June to September has hit 101 woredas. It counts 250,035 hectares of damaged cropland, 28,629 dead livestock and more than 319 water points that have dried up completely or in part, and it says roughly 3.3 million livestock face a high risk of feed shortage, with more than nine animal diseases found in 13 woredas.<\/p>\n

The numbers by area show how wide it is. In West Hararghe, in Oromia, the IFRC says the drought touched 316,986 hectares of cropland, 200,683 of them a total loss, and that only eight of 229 community ponds that were checked still held water, leaving about 696,873 people in 15 woredas in urgent need of help. A screening in West Hararghe in June found 24,925 children with moderate acute malnutrition and 2,896 with severe acute malnutrition out of 464,880 children screened. In North Gondar, in Amhara, 318,443 people, about 76.7 percent of the assessed population, were reported affected, along with 19,318 displaced people. In Tigray, 405,288 people were affected and 250,865 of them need assistance in the seven woredas that were assessed.<\/p>\n

The response is small next to that. The Ethiopian Red Cross Society plans to help 50,000 people in Oromia, Amhara and Tigray in a six-month operation that runs until the end of March, with 749,973 Swiss francs from the IFRC's Disaster Response Emergency Fund. It will give seeds and fertilizer to 5,000 farming families, fodder to 3,120 pastoralist households and two rounds of cash to 1,880 households, and repair 35 water systems. The IFRC itself notes that 50,000 people is only about 1.4 percent of the 3.57 million reported affected.<\/p>\n

The second report, the WFP's October country brief, also reported by The Reporter, says the UN agency needs USD 251 million over the next six months and that only 46 percent of that is funded. In September it reached about 2.1 million food-insecure people, up from 1.9 million in August, but it kept cereal rations at 60 percent, which is nine kilograms per person, to stretch its stocks. Ethiopia also hosts more than 1.13 million refugees and asylum seekers, and those who have been in camps for years now receive only 60 percent rations because of the budget, while new arrivals from Sudan and South Sudan get full rations.<\/p>\n

The war makes it harder. The WFP says hostilities in Afar and Tigray restricted its access to schools it supports, and that insecurity in Amhara disrupted teaching and school meals in 45 institutions. In Afar, it said, food distribution for about 28,000 refugees in the Berhale district resumed in early October after a short interruption because of access problems.<\/p>\n

On X, two Ethiopian outlets put faces to the numbers. Addis Fortune shared the story of Mussa Ahmed in the Abala district of Afar, whose family harvested hardly any quintals from eight hectares of wheat, teff and maize, because the rain "fell for two days in June, then stopped." Addis Standard reported from Wag Hemra, in Amhara, where drought, conflict and poverty have come together. "The proverb 'war is better than famine' has come true for us," a resident told the outlet.<\/p>\n

The drought reaches beyond Ethiopia. UN relief chief Tom Fletcher called this El Ni\u00f1o a "wrecking ball" on October 21, Reda Sadki wrote on X, and EE_Ibrahim23 posted a report saying parts of neighboring Sudan had their lowest rainfall since 1984, "the year famine devastated Sudan and Ethiopia." The IMF, in its regional outlook for sub-Saharan Africa released at its annual meetings this month, projected that El Ni\u00f1o will last through February 2027.<\/p>\n

The IFRC says conditions in areas classed as Crisis or Emergency on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification are expected to continue until January 2027, pushing poor families to borrow, sell what they own, or migrate.<\/p>\n

The WFP says it is now preparing to assist an additional 223,100 people across Afar, Amhara and Tigray as partners come on board, and that it is looking at early action and an expansion of the Productive Safety Net Programme "to avert deeper humanitarian catastrophe," according to The Reporter.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h4>\n