Nearly one-fifth of Ethiopia is in need of food aid, as a punishing drought kills off livestock in areas where people — especially pregnant women and children — rely on milk for nutrition, Reuters says.
The report cited data from ReliefWeb, a website run by the United Nations. It found that at least 8.5 million people in 228 districts of Ethiopia need urgent food aid in the second half of the year, up from 5.6 million in January. It expects the crisis to last into 2018.
About 2 million animals have died in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region, which is home to many herding communities and a quarter of the country’s cases of severe acute malnutrition. “For livestock-dependent families, the animals can literally mean the difference between life and death, especially for children and pregnant and nursing women, for whom milk is a crucial source of nutrition,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement last week.
Food insecurity is now at a level not seen since the height of the El Niño drought in 2016, said the joint report, which the U.N. compiled with the Ethiopian government, according to the news agency. Eastern and southern Africa were hit hard last year by a drought that wilted crops and drove up food prices.
The U.N. said that in August, the USAID announced an additional $137 million in assistance for Ethiopia and nearly $33 million for Kenya, which brings humanitarian funding by the United States for the two countries to more than $458 million in 2017. This will support emergency food assistance for about 3 million people.