The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun rolling out food distributions to nearly 900,000 refugees in Ethiopia, following a full revamp of the safeguards and controls in its refugee operations. WFP said Monday that families living in refugee camps across five regions are receiving food parcels for the first time since the UN agency paused food distributions in June 2023, following reports of large-scale diversions.
However, food distributions for millions of food insecure Ethiopians, including internally displaced persons (IDPs) are still paused. WFP said it is testing the improved targeting and distribution processes for other groups in need. More than 20 million people in the country require food support. This includes millions of IDPs, who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict in the north and the severe drought in the south and southeast.
“WFP teams and our partners have been working around the clock to ensure we can get food to those who need it most,” said Valerie Guarnieri, WFP’s Assistant Executive Director, in a statement.
“Food is a lifeline for refugees living in unimaginably hard conditions, and it’s a relief that we now have measures in place to resume vital support.”
WFP and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) halted food aid to Ethiopia in June 2023 after discovering that supplies were not reaching those in need, raising fears that millions of people in need go hungry. The diversion of life-saving food assistance and its suspension in Ethiopia threatens at-risk populations amid high levels of food insecurity following years of conflict and climatic shocks.
Ethiopia hosts some 885,000 refugees mostly from Somalia, South Sudan and Eritrea and including around 35,000 people who have fled from Sudan to Ethiopia in the last six months who urgently require food assistance.
Resuming food assistance for refugees is vital. According to the UN agency, latest hunger data shows that refugee food security has deteriorated in the past months, leading to increased malnutrition, heightened tensions around the camps and even unsafe journeys back across the border.
WFP said its distributions will resume in Somali, Gambella, Benishangul Gumuz, Oromia, SNNP and Afar regions, providing refugees with cereals, pulses, vegetable oil and salt. Some refugees will receive part of their entitlement as cash assistance.
The resumption of food distributions for refugees follows major reforms in all camps across the country.
The UN agency also reported it is making progress to test and rollout controls and measures needed to resume food distributions for millions of food insecure Ethiopians as well. The measures include working directly with communities to identify and target the most vulnerable people and digitally register them for assistance. The controls include enhanced logistics and distribution mechanisms that allow for more precise tracking right through to each family supported.
The move comes after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had made the decision to resume food assistance to refugees. USAID said last week that the Ethiopian government and implementing partners made reforms to Ethiopia’s refugee food assistance structure. The US government agency noted that the resumption of food assistance to refugees will save lives and alleviate suffering for some of the most vulnerable.
“Reforms put in place strengthen program monitoring and oversight, reinforce commodity tracking, and improve beneficiary registration processes. In addition, the Ethiopian government has transferred responsibility for dispatch, warehousing, and distribution of refugee food aid to our implementing partners”, a statement said.
USAID added its priority is to resume food assistance for those in need as soon as possible in all regions of the country.
Ethiopia continues to face huge humanitarian challenges, with conflict, displacement, drought, floods, and disease outbreaks as the main drivers of need. These challenges are creating a complex and volatile situation affecting more than 28 million people in need of humanitarian assistance this year.
A historic drought and war in northern Ethiopia — which both began in 2020 — in addition to disease outbreaks, and intercommunal conflict have contributed to elevated needs across the country. Although a peace agreement was signed in late 2022 and humanitarian access to Tigray and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara improved, needs remain high due to the two-year conflict.
Some 9 million people in the Tigray, Afar, and Amhara regions are in need of food assistance due to the impact of the conflict. A prolonged drought, the worst in the Horn of Africa region in modern history, has increase food and nutrition insecurity in eastern and southern Ethiopia. An estimated 11 million people nationwide are suffering severe hunger due to the drought and are also in need of food assistance.
As of June 2023, more than 4.38 million people were internally displaced in Ethiopia, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The main causes of displacement across the northeastern African country are conflict (2.9 million IDPs), drought (811,000 IDPs) and social tension (324,000 IDPs).
While Ethiopia's Somali region hosts the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) primarily displaced due to drought (543,000 people), Tigray region hosts the highest number of IDPs primarily displaced due to conflict (1 million people).
In another development regarding Ethiopia, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed its alarm Tuesday at the heightened risk of genocide and related atrocity crimes in Ethiopia, following reports of continued fighting between government troops and local militias in the Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Oromia regions.
“The incident reports that we see coming out of Ethiopia are deeply disturbing and constitute a call for action,” Nderitu said.
“I want to particularly draw the attention of the global community to the continued presence of risk factors for genocide and related atrocity crimes in the country.”
Entire families have been reportedly killed, relatives forced to watch horrific crimes against their loved ones, while whole communities have been displaced or expelled from their homes.
“The suffering of innocent civilians should never be accepted as inevitable; rather, it must reinforce our commitment to ensure that impunity does not prevail and that all possible prevention actions are prioritized,” she said.
A September report to the United Nations Human Rights Council accused all parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia of widespread atrocities, many amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, despite the peace agreement signed nearly a year ago. The report from the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia documents wide-ranging atrocities committed since the conflict between the government and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) erupted in 2020.
On Tuesday, Nderitu called for an immediate end to wide-ranging violations perpetrated by parties to the conflict, including mass killings, rape, starvation, destruction of schools and medical facilities, forced displacement and arbitrary detention.
Further information
Full text: WFP resumes distributions to refugees across Ethiopia, WFP press release, published October 9, 2023
https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-resumes-distributions-refugees-across-ethiopia
Full text: USAID Resumes Food Assistance for Refugees in Ethiopia, Announces Key Initiatives to Expand Oversight, USAID press release, published October 5, 2023
https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/oct-05-2023-usaid-resumes-food-assistance-refugees-ethiopia-announces-key-initiatives-expand-oversight
Full text: Ethiopia: United Nations Special Adviser warns of heightened risk of genocide and related atrocity crimes amid increased violent clashes in Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Oromi, UN press release, published October 10, 2023
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN_Special_Adviser_statement_Ethiopia_101023.pdf