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The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of refugees in Ethiopia risk losing food aid entirely due to cuts in international funding, the UN agency said on Friday.
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, hosts large numbers of refugees from Sudan and South Sudan, as well as internally displaced people fleeing internal conflicts.
Zlatan Milisic, WFP’s director in Ethiopia, said the agency urgently needs to raise approximately $230 million to maintain humanitarian operations for the next six months.
“Without immediate new funding, WFP could be forced to completely suspend food assistance for all refugees in Ethiopia in the coming months,” Milisic said in a statement.
Reductions in foreign aid, particularly from the United States and other Western countries this year, have exacerbated funding shortfalls in many developing nations.
Earlier this month, WFP was compelled to cut food rations for 780,000 refugees across 27 camps in Ethiopia. Milisic said the reductions represented “impossible choices” and were pushing the agency closer to halting food distributions entirely.
According to the WFP, refugees are now receiving fewer than 1,000 calories a day—less than half of the recommended 2,100-calorie daily intake.
Ethiopia is currently seeing a surge of refugees from Sudan, which has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, and South Sudan, which continues to struggle with instability.
Meanwhile, internal conflicts in Ethiopia’s most populous regions have displaced tens of thousands of residents.
“Every ration cut is a child left hungrier, a mother forced to skip meals, a family pushed closer to the edge,” Milisic said.
In April, WFP halted aid for 650,000 malnourished women and children, highlighting the severity of the crisis. From January to October, the agency provided life-saving assistance to 4.7 million vulnerable people across Ethiopia.
