Recent United Nations data reveals that over four million individuals in Ethiopia have been displaced from their residences, primarily due to conflict or drought.
During the timeframe spanning from November 2022 to June 2023, as reported by the International Organization for Migration’s National Displacement Report, a cumulative count of 4.38 million individuals faced internal displacement.
“Conflict is the primary cause of displacement and displaced 2.9 million IDPs (66.41 percent), followed by drought which displaced 810,855 IDPs (18.49 percent),” said the report, which was published on Wednesday.
The war-ravaged region of Tigray saw over one million individuals displaced, as indicated in the data, which incorporated this region for the first time since September 2021.
For a span of two years, Ethiopia’s northernmost region witnessed intense conflict between government-aligned forces and Tigrayan rebels until a peace agreement was reached in November of the previous year.
According to the IOM report, the eastern Somali region registered the highest count of individuals displaced due to drought, totaling nearly 543,000.
As per United Nations statistics, a combined total of 28.6 million people in Ethiopia, the second most populous nation in Africa, are in need of assistance.
Nonetheless, the humanitarian response continues to suffer from notable underfunding, with only 27 percent of the approximately $4 billion needed having been raised so far, noted Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN’s resident coordinator for Ethiopia, in a statement earlier this week.