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 2025, the country has an estimated population of about 129.7 million people, making it the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria.

The humanitarian situation

The overall humanitarian situation in Ethiopia has improved significantly over the past two years, but 21.4 million people were still in need of emergency assistance in 2024. Millions of Ethiopians remain displaced by conflict, insecurity, and climate-related shocks such as droughts or floods, as well as other natural disasters such as earthquakes. Ethiopia faces multiple drivers of instability. Years of drought and conflict have left millions of Ethiopians without enough to eat. Many have no water, medicine, food or shelter and fear for their lives.

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 since hostilities resumed, many of them for the second time. 

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 remain high due to two years of conflict. While the peace agreement ended active conflict in Tigray, tensions in the region are rising again in early 2025, and armed clashes in Amhara and Oromia have increased protection risks for civilians and hampered humanitarian access.

Conflict in the Tigray region and surrounding areas had already displaced hundreds of thousands before the renewed escalation in 2022. The largest increase in displacement in Africa over the year 2021 has been in Africa's second-most populous country. As a result of violence in the northern regions, some 1.9 million Ethiopians fled their homes in 2021 and 2022. Nearly 150,000 Ethiopians sought refuge in neighboring countries. 

In mid-2024, an estimated 4.5 million people were still internally displaced in Ethiopia, while 3.3 million IDPs had returned to their areas of origin since January 2022. Acording to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the main causes of displacement were conflict, drought, and other climate-related events such as floods, landslides, and fires. 

While the Somali region of Ethiopia hosted the largest number of internally displaced persons (1.2 million) who were uprooted due to drought, the Tigray region (1.2 million) and the Oroma region (1.2 million) hosted the largest number of IDPs uprooted mainly due to conflict.

Ethiopia is a major refugee hosting country in Africa, home to over 1.075 million refugees and asylum seekers - mainly from South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea - as of April 2025. Following the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, Ethiopia has taken in more than 70,000 forcibly displaced people from Sudan, while rising tensions in South Sudan have forced tens of thousands to flee across the border since February 2025.

A prolonged three-year drought between 2020 and 2022, the worst in the Horn of Africa region in modern history, increased food and nutrition insecurity in eastern, northern and southern Ethiopia. In 2024, the food security situation in the country remained extremely worrying, with 15.8 million people in need of food assistance, including 4 million internally displaced people.

In 2025, food insecurity remains severe, with an estimated 10.2 million people affected, and malnutrition rates exceeding emergency levels in some areas.

According to estimates, more than 940,000 children under five will require treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) this year, while 2.4 million children under five and 1.3 million malnourished pregnant and lactating mothers will require treatment for moderate acute malnutrition (MAM).

Transitional authorities in the war-torn Tigray region warned at the turn of the year 2023/2024 of a looming famine due to drought and the lingering effects of the devastating two-year war in the north of the country, as rainfall in northern Ethiopia continued to be too low.

At the beginning of 2025, humanitarian needs remain significant, driven mainly by ongoing conflicts, particularly in the Amhara and Oromia regions, as well as climate shocks such as droughts, floods and landslides, and recurrent health emergencies such as malaria and cholera outbreaks.

As the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Ethiopia is still being finalized, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance this year has not yet been released. The 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) included a placeholder funding requirement of US$2 billion for humanitarian response in 2025, targeting 10 million of the most vulnerable.

According to 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. An estimated 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). If the cease-fire is 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. The UN notes 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, due in part 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.

Ethiopia Map

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 remains extremely fragile.

At the same time, the humanitarian situation in Tigray continues to be critical, with more than 760,000 internally displaced persons still living in precarious conditions as of April 2025. While the total number of IDPs has not increased significantly, living conditions continue to deteriorate due to dwindling resources and overcrowding. At least one million people across Tigray, most of them displaced, are in critical need of humanitarian aid.

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

In Ethiopia's Amhara region, clashes between government forces and the regional Fano militia, that fought on the government side during the conflict in the Tigray region, remain ongoing. The fighting between the federal government and the armed group were 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 have yet to recover from two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia that has 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 faced a challenging situation in 2023 and 2024, with 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 in 2024, 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, has resulted in serious human rights violations and abuses. In Tigray, the human rights situation improved significantly after the COHA, but concerns remain about continued human rights abuses by members of the Eritrean Defense Forces.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ongoing hostilities in western Oromia continue to displace thousands of civilians and affect humanitarian operations. More than 860,000 women, men and children are currently internally displaced due to conflict in the region.

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. Fighting between the OLA and government forces has been going on for six years.

The prevailing insecurity in the northeastern African country has hampered humanitarian access, particularly in parts of the Amhara and Oromia regions.

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: 18/04/2025

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