ETHIOPIA: WFP to feed over 600,000 people in Somali region

WFP announced on Thursday it will provide emergency food aid to some 640,000 drought-stricken pastoralists in the Somali region of Ethiopia. The agency has reallocated 8,000 mt of food from Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Jijiga for the relief effort, which is slated to last one month, according to a WFP news release. "WFP's intervention is working to stave off a full-scale drought emergency," WFP's Ethiopia country director Judith Lewis said. She added that if the current rainy season fails, "we could have a major humanitarian crisis on our hands". According to Rebecca Hansen, the agency's relief unit head in Ethiopia, pastoralists in the region have been migrating in search of water for themselves and their animals. "Grazing conditions are much worse than normal for this time of the year and drinking water is in short supply. A lack of rainfall during the two previous rainy seasons has only exacerbated the drought conditions," the news release said.