Ethiopia Crisis

Ethiopia Map
Source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

The country

Ethiopia is a landlocked country in northeastern Africa. Its national capital is Addis Ababa.  Located in the Horn of Africa, the country borders Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti.  Ethiopia covers an area of 1,104,300 square kilometers. In 2026, the country has an estimated population of about 139 million people, making it the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria.

The humanitarian situation

Although the overall humanitarian situation in Ethiopia has improved significantly over the past four years, millions of Ethiopians remain displaced due to conflict, insecurity, climate-related shocks (such as droughts and floods), and other natural disasters (such as earthquakes). Years of drought and conflict have left millions without enough food. Many lack access to water, medicine, food, and shelter, and fear for their lives. 

In September 2026, fragile peace in northern Ethiopia fractured into renewed violence when large-scale hostilities broke out between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government, raising concerns about a potential resumption of full-scale civil war in northern Ethiopia. 

The sudden outbreak of violence has sent shockwaves through Tigray's population, which is still reeling from the brutal civil war that ended just four years ago. Rooted in a power struggle between the regional and federal governments, that previous conflict left an estimated 600,000 people dead and pushed the region to the brink of famine. The Tigray war was one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century. 

Between August and November 2022, fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray region escalated and had a devastating impact on civilians in an already dire humanitarian situation. According to the United Nations, indiscriminate attacks in the war zone killed civilians, damaged critical infrastructure and limited access to vital services. Hundreds of thousands of people in northern Ethiopia were forced to flee their homes.

Although peace returned to northern Ethiopia in late 2022 with the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) and improved humanitarian access to Tigray and neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, needs remained high due to two years of conflict. While the peace agreement ended active conflict in Tigray for four years, key provisions of the deal —including the disarmament of Tigray’s armed forces and the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced people—were never fully implemented.

The overall humanitarian situation in several regions of Ethiopia remains dire. Despite some security improvements over the last four years, approximately 1.9 million Ethiopians remained displaced by conflict, insecurity, and climate-related shocks before renewed fighting began. While tensions in Tigray have been rising again since early 2025, ongoing armed clashes in the Amhara and Oromia regions have increased protection risks for civilians and hampered humanitarian access.

Similar tensions persist elsewhere in Ethiopia, including clashes between government forces and the Fano militia in the Amhara region. Aid operations in the north, particularly in parts of Amhara, were already facing significant constraints due to insecurity, including the seizure of humanitarian vehicles and other assets by armed actors. Meanwhile, ongoing hostilities in western Oromia continue to displace civilians and obstruct humanitarian operations.

Years of prolonged drought and persistent violence have left millions without adequate food supplies. Ethiopia is also facing a massive influx of refugees and currently hosts over 1.1 million people, mostly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan. Over 97,000 of these individuals have arrived from Sudan since April 2023.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that worsening security conditions across northern Ethiopia are adding to humanitarian needs and disrupting humanitarian operations. Humanitarian access has been severely restricted by disrupted telecommunications, suspended flights to and from the Tigray Region and some locations in Amhara Region, and restrictions on key roads, limiting  the movements of humanitarians, relief supplies and essential services.

Humanitarian operations are already under severe pressure from funding shortages. Aid agencies have scaled back or suspended activities, leaving fewer humanitarian organizations on the ground and widening response gaps.

There is no official Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Ethiopia in 2026, primarily due to a lack of consensus on humanitarian data and analysis between international agencies and the Ethiopian federal government. Without verified figures on the number of people in need, it has not been possible to publish a formal, countrywide HRP. This has prompted aid organizations to rely on targeted agency appeals and localized response frameworks instead.

Ongoing disputes between international agencies and the Ethiopian federal government regarding crisis numbers, food security statistics, and the true extent of the need have made it difficult to reach an agreement on unified response figures. These disputes also undermined the HRP for 2025. 

Although humanitarian needs remained significant at the beginning of 2025, driven mainly by ongoing conflicts in the Amhara and Oromia regions and climate shocks such as droughts, floods, and landslides, as well as recurrent health emergencies such as malaria and cholera outbreaks, the 2025 HRP for Ethiopia was never finalized.

Thus, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance that year was neither published nor agreed upon. The 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) included a placeholder funding requirement of $2 billion for the 2025 humanitarian response, which would target 10 million of the most vulnerable people. The last official figures available date back to 2024.

According to UN estimates, 21.4 million people required humanitarian aid in 2024. In 2023, a total of 28.6 million people in Ethiopia needed humanitarian assistance and protection; nearly three-quarters of those in need were women and children. According to UNICEF, 16.5 million children alone were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations and its partners were seeking US$3.24 billion to help 15.5 million people through 2024. As of April 2025, the humanitarian response was only 31 percent covered by funding. The UN 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Ethiopia required US$4 billion. As of December, the HRP was only 34 percent funded.

Ethiopia LocationThe security situation

In November 2020, military conflict erupted between forces allied with the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian National Defense Force, Ethiopia's national military. The conflict, which lasted throughout 2021 and 2022, exacerbated ethnic violence and was largely concentrated in the regional states of Tigray, Amhara, and Afar. The conflict in northern Ethiopia triggered the dire humanitarian situation in these regions. According to estimates, more than 600,000 people died in the conflict, and millions were internally displaced.  

Between March and August 2022, a humanitarian ceasefire and cessation of hostilities led to an improvement in the delivery of aid. The ceasefire gave hope that peace talks could lead to a resolution of the conflict and the return of displaced people to their homes and livelihoods.  

However, on August 24, 2022, fighting broke out again between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Ethiopian federal government. Both sides of the conflict blamed each other for the renewed hostilities. The violation of the five-month cease-fire in the Ethiopian civil war dashed hopes for unhindered access for humanitarian aid. Instead, the collapse of the truce led to the closing of humanitarian corridors.  

On November 2, 2022, the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) announced a ceasefire after ten days of peace talks in South Africa mediated by the African Union (AU). A joint statement said the warring parties agreed to "silence the guns and end the two-year conflict in northern Ethiopia." The terms of the cease-fire agreement commit the federal government to facilitating unhindered humanitarian access to Tigray.  

On November 12, 2022, military commanders representing Ethiopia’s government and the TPLF signed a deal in Nairobi establishing the modalities for the implementation of the “Permanent Cessation of Hostilities Agreement” (COHA). But the cease-fire was never fully implemented and held this time permanently; it would end a civil war that has devastated large parts of northern Ethiopia and has killed hundreds of thousands.  

In mid-November 2022, the first aid deliveries reached Tigray since the Pretoria and Nairobi peace agreements were signed. According to humanitarian sources on the ground, improved security in Tigray, Afar and Amhara allowed humanitarian organizations to access previously inaccessible areas. After the resumption of hostilities in northern Ethiopia in August, the region had been largely cut off from humanitarian assistance.  

Humanitarian access to northern Ethiopia's Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions improved since the signing of the COHA, enabling relief actors to scale up assistance. While humanitarian relief continues to reach northern Ethiopia, the aid is insufficient to meet the unmet needs of millions of people in the Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions, in part due to limited funding and resources.

Despite overall access improvements, some areas along the Eritrea–Ethiopia border and northeastern Amhara Region remain difficult to reach. Insecurity and the presence of Eritrean troops continue to impede humanitarian operations and jeopardize the safety of aid workers and civilians in these areas.  

In March 2025, analysts warned that rivalries among Tigrayan political leaders threatened to derail the process of reintegrating the Tigray region into Ethiopia's federal structure and could quickly escalate into a wider conflict involving Eritrea. More than two years after the ceasefire that ended the war between Ethiopian government forces and the TPLF, the security situation in Tigray remained extremely fragile.  

Amidst about a tenth of the region's estimated seven million people still being internally displaced, there was growing concern about the potential humanitarian consequences of rising political tensions. Many Tigrayans, fearing that the region could slide back into conflict, begun stockpiling food and withdrawing money from banks. National and international actors urged restraint, as a further deterioration of the situation would be devastating for a population still recovering from the devastating conflict.  

In Ethiopia's Amhara region, clashes between government forces and the regional Fano militia, which fought on the government side during the conflict in the Tigray region, remain ongoing. The fighting between the federal government and the armed group was sparked in April 2023 when the government asked the militia to join the country's police or military following the peace agreement in Tigray.  

Civilians in Amhara had yet to recover from two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia that had affected their lives and livelihoods. The hostilities exacerbate the plight of civilians, especially given the limited humanitarian response that has stalled as a result of insecurity.  

Despite significant improvements in the humanitarian and human rights situation in Tigray since the COHA, Ethiopia as a whole faces a challenging situation, with the Amhara and Oromia regions most affected by violent clashes and conflict. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the overall human rights situation in Ethiopia remained dire, with government forces, militias, and non-state armed groups committing serious abuses in conflict-affected areas and elsewhere in the country.  

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation remains of serious concern as violence, drought, and other climate-related disasters continue to cause displacement and prevent the safe return of IDPs to their homes. Violent conflict, particularly in the Amhara and Oromia regions, resulted in serious human rights violations and abuses. Ongoing hostilities in western Oromia continue to displace thousands of civilians and affect humanitarian operations. 

Tensions and violence in the Oromia region have led to an alarming number of casualties and an extremely worrying overall situation. The Ethiopian government blames the violence on a rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). However, the response of government forces has also contributed to the precarious situation. 

The fragile peace in northern Ethiopia was severely fractured in September 2026 when large-scale hostilities once again broke out between the TPLF and the Ethiopian federal government. TPLF-aligned forces reportedly launched a major offensive, seizing regional airports in Mekelle, Shire, and Aksum, and clashing with federal troops across the borders of the Amhara and Afar regions. The sudden collapse of the post-2022 status quo triggered widespread concern over the potential for a return to full-scale civil war and the potential devastating humanitarian consequences.

Donations

Your donation for the Ethiopia emergency can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.

To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.

Further information

Last updated: 2026/09/30

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