ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 13 (Xinhua)-- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said some 8.4 million people are projected to have humanitarian needs in Ethiopia in 2020.
The majority of the vulnerable people are in Oromia, Ethiopia's largest region, the UNOCHA said in its latest Humanitarian Needs Overview of Ethiopia for 2020.
About 2.4 million people, or 39 percent of the total population, in Ethiopia's Somali region are also projected to require humanitarian needs over the course of 2020, followed by the Amhara region, with 1.0 million people.
Of the 8.4 million people in need, about 74 percent have acute needs that need to be immediately addressed, the UNOCHA said.
Crop and pasture loss due to desert locust infestations in parts of Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions was taken into consideration when calculating the people in need of food assistance in the regions, it was noted.
The UNOCHA noted that although Ethiopia's conflict-inflicted internally displacement crisis has been given most of the attention and resources of the Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners due to its acuteness and severity, "the majority of people in need of relief assistance in 2020 remain the ones impacted by climate shocks."
The latest UNOCHA humanitarian needs projection also includes 403,000 climate change-affected destitute pastoralists and 2.8 million people with severe food needs because of climate shocks and lack of recovery.
