Rising relief needs

Additional food aid pledges are urgently required if a major humanitarian crisis is to be avoided in drought-affected areas of Ethiopia, a UN report said. The report by the UNDP Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia, received by IRIN, said UN and government assessment missions in June to most severely-affected areas had found that an "alarming situation" was developing, with increasing malnutrition rates and population migrations observed. Areas visited included North and South Wello, Wag Hamra, South Tigray, East Harerge, Welayita and Konso Special Wereda. The assessment teams had identified many signs of food "stress," including the sale of assets, the absence of food stocks at the household level, increasingly poor terms of trade between livestock and grain and decreases in school attendance, the report said. In South Wello, the condition of livestock was very poor, with animal carcasses "lining the road," while in Wag Hamara, "whole households" had begun to move in search of food. The Ethiopian government's recent contribution of 20,000 mt of relief grain, combined with new donor pledges announced by Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, will provide sufficient food to cover July's requirements, "but the overall pledge situation remains alarmingly low," the report said.