Around dusk during the first week of August this year, dark clouds blew over the craggy ridges of North Wollo, in Amhara Regional State, where more than 8,500 people squeezed into the makeshift Jara camp. A hot wind rose, rattling the patchwork of tarpaulins and wooden poles. Then the sky split open. Within minutes, a violent storm tore 366 shelters from the ground and injured 23 people, two so severely they had to be rushed to Dessie for surgery.
When the deluge finally eased, 366 shelters, along with communal kitchens and lanterns, lay in tatters. For families who have already waited years for a place to call home, the wreckage was a fresh reminder of how fragile life in displacement sites has become.
One of the first to pick through the debris was Jemal Ibrahim, a 31-year-old volunteer supervisor. He was a teacher in East Wellega, Oromia Regional State. Conflict forced him to flee with his wife and three children three years ago. Aid officials assured him that the upheaval would last six months. It still stings.
“How long will we wait for human hands?” he wondered, standing before a rain-soaked tent crammed with multiple families.
Everywhere he looks, shelters meant for one household hold four. Rebuilding is a fantasy; a single length of timber fetches 200 Br, well beyond a ration-dependent budget that offers each person 15Kg of millet, 1.5Kg of pea cake and half a litre of oil a month.
“Living without work is unthinkable,” he said.
His hunch was that if camps were closer to towns, people could earn money. Instead, they remain isolated, and hungry.
Federal officials recently sent food and blankets, and the Organisation for Rehabilitation & Development in Amhara Regional State (ORDA) supplied sanitation kits. However, Jemal found it “far from enough”. School is hardly within reach. Children have to walk seven kilometres to the nearest classroom. Last year, one child was injured and another died on that trek. The Amhara Development Association (ADA) managed to help 674 of 2,795 students before the storm halted even that modest effort.
The statistics could frame the scale but never the texture of the crisis. Last year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Ethiopia had more than 3.3 million internally displaced people, down from nearly 5.6 million people two years ago, but still representing 0.4pc of the global average of internally displaced people. Citizens like Jemal, constituting almost 70pc, were uprooted by violent conflict, while another 17pc by drought. Regional states such as Amhara, Afar and Tigray together host the vast majority.
Across Amhara and Tigray regional states, the IOM has mapped about 146 displacement sites. In the latter, most sprawl in school compounds, disrupting education for host communities as well. To ease pressure, humanitarian partners built 12 dedicated camps. The Amhara Region has added four more. Since the conflict erupted in 2020, 56 organisations, ranging from UN agencies to local NGOs and the federal Disaster Risk Management Commission (DRMC), have contributed, distributing more than 688,000 kits of bedding, kitchenware, and hygiene items.
Plastic sheets and timber have reached around a million people in both regions. But the pipeline is running dry.
“Since 2024, funding for the humanitarian response, including shelter and non-food assistance, has drastically reduced,” said the IOM communications officer, Eric Mazango. “This year, the situation has worsened significantly.”
In reality, the situation only uncovers what Jemal and his neighbours know. Daily life is a battle against overcrowding, chronic shortage and the slow erosion of hope.
Abebaw Minaye (PhD), a psychologist who heads the Forced Displacement & Migration Studies Centre at Addis Abeba University, has spent over a decade studying displacement and have recently been visiting camps from Debre Birhan to Shire. He describes “people living without hope”. Across multiple sites, he interviewed 100 residents apiece. Many confided in anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.
“The people do not know how they will live tomorrow,” he told Fortune. “Their lives are full of hopelessness.”
Even the better-run Bakielo camp near Debre Birhan town, 130Km northeast of the capital, offers only relative comfort. At China Camp in Debre Birhan town, families sleep in warehouses. Still, many prefer that to the street.
A camp in Wello, the MekaneEysus camp, tells a parallel story. Run-off from summer storms darkens the red earth, pooling around rows of low-roofed huts. Among them lives Muhamed Tefera, 37, who was displaced from Horo Guduru in Wellega Zone five years ago. He shares a two-by-three-metre shelter with his wife and three children. Each fresh downpour brings leaks.
On July 7, the family received their last food delivery. Onions or oil are distant luxuries. His older children, in third and fourth grade, may soon abandon school altogether.
“What can we eat? Are the children fed?” he asked. “That is all we think about.”
MekaneEysus alone houses 1,420 people, including 650 children, 32 physically challenged, and 35 with urgent medical treatment. A dose of paracetamol can cost 60 Br. Past measles outbreaks sit in everyone’s memories.
“If it happens again, no one will survive,” Muhamed warned. These days, even he insists on a grim priority.
“Forget the shelter, focus on food,” he said.
Aid workers count more than 5,700 displaced people across MekaneEysus’s three sibling camps at Hayk, in South Wollo. Coordinators say that each person still receives only 15Kg of food a month. Shelter leaks, kitchens are empty, and 1,232 students urgently need pencils and exercise books.
The misery deepens as aid workers drive farther north-west of the country, where rivers thread through fertile valleys before climbing to Shire, once a trading hub on a plateau in Tigray Regional State. Now, it hosts makeshift camps in schools. On August 13, floodwater swept through Hilbert Elementary School, one of 18 sites around the town. It ruined bedding, spoiled grain and erased what little people owned.
MebrhatumAyley, 33, used to harvest 60Qtls of millet and maise in Welkayit. Today, he struggles to afford food, selling at 7,000 Br a quintal. The aid organisation supporting his family gives each person 1,360 Br a month. The World Food Programme (WFP) last delivered a proper ration six months ago. Last month, the family received only 12Kg per head. In the camp, which has a population of roughly 4,500 people, rooms intended for classroom lessons are now used as crowded bedrooms.
“The water came back again,” he said. “All that we had was lost. We want to live. It’s about survival, not a luxury. They must forget politics and think about us.”
Negash Hadush, camp coordination officer with the Tigray Disaster & Risk Management Commission, surveys the gap between needs and supplies every day.
“The current situation is very threatening,” he said. “Supply and demand are going in different directions; there is no balance.”
The suspension of food aid last year by USAID left warehouses bare as drought cut harvests and flash floods ravaged the earth. A handful of distributions continue, but most families go to bed hungry in overcrowded classrooms or ragged tents.
“Everyone knows what is happening here,” Negash said. “We need more support, and aid must follow humanitarian principles.”
In Addis Abeba, federal officials say they are doing that. Alemayehu Wocheto (PhD), public relations head at the DRMC, outlines a three-phase mandate of early warning, immediate response, and post-crisis recovery.
“If an incident occurs, we provide a full emergency response,” he said, pointing to recent efforts to protect more than 80,000 people from flooding along the Awash River Basin and from an earthquake scare in Afar Regional State.
Regional governments are expected to shoulder the first responsibility. Federal agencies step in when local capacity is overwhelmed. According to Alemayehu, the federal government covers 30pc of the costs related to displacement, but provides additional support if a formal request is received. In urgent cases, he says, the federal Commission, led by Shiferaw Teklemariam (PhD), acts within an hour. But he draws a line around expectations.
“Our work is not to distribute flour and oil only,” he said “but to provide a secure life.”
Federal officials are keen on discussing ways to overcome aid dependency. By June 2026, the Commission plans to build modern warehouses and stockpile half a million tonnes of food for a three-year emergency plan. They hope community-based self-help organisations, such as “Idir” and “Iqub”, would pitch in.
“We’re now working to remove aid dependency, not to abandon people who need support,” Alemayehu said.
He claims that the number of Ethiopians requiring humanitarian assistance has decreased from 27 million in previous years to 3.9 million currently. However, international agencies still count 21.4 million Ethiopians in need, 16.7 million of them women and children. UNICEF has appealed for 493 million dollars this year to reach 10.5 million people, including thousands of malnourished children, barely 12pc of this sum has arrived.
Alemayehu blamed external reports citing higher figures for a lack of a “clear methodology.” To tighten oversight, his office is developing an ID-linked pass and coding system to track camp entries and exits.
Behind every percentage or policy promise lie untold private costs.
In Jara, Jemal still organised daily chores under plastic sheeting patched with twine. In MekaneEysus, Muhamed listened for the rumble of aid trucks, wondering if school fees would ever fit his budget. In Shire, Mebrhatum tried to dry salvaged clothing and heard for more rain. They all share a quiet wish for a chance to work and to rebuild with their own hands. Abebaw thinks that is the one promise the country should keep.
“Your time living in a shelter is wasted,” he said. “They can. They are not helpless.”
He sees three pathways for returning displaced people home once it is safe, give them new plots elsewhere, or create permanent and economically viable settlements. However, political wrangles often shut all three.
“It’s difficult for IDP camps to be permanent,” he said. “But political obstacles often prevent long-term solutions.”
Ethiopia, according to Abebaw, has little experience resettling such large groups. Donor fatigue since the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by USAID’s suspension and what he calls the rise of “Trumponomics”, has choked funding.
“Trumponomics really affected NGOs,” he said.
Unless political leaders adopt a long-term vision, displacement will continue to be a stain beneath every new crisis. For now, the wind keeps blowing across the highlands. Tarps flap like tired flags. Families count their rations, mend leaks and brace for the next storm, holding on to the hope that someday, the waiting will end.
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