The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia has spiked for the first time since it peaked following the 2015 El Nino drought.

The figure, which had declined by eight percent in the previous year to 7.8 million people, has now increased to 8.3 million.

Meeting this need will cost 1.3 billion dollars, according to the Ethiopia Humanitarian Response Plan for 2019, launched by the National Disaster Risk Management Commission and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

The budget for the response plan has been lowered by almost a quarter from the previous year. The current plan calls for 60pc of the budget to be covered by the Ethiopian government and 22pc by the World Food Program (WFP).

“The rest will be covered by the international community,” said Debebe Zewde, director of public relations at the National Disaster Risk Management Commission.

Food assistance alone will take up 90pc of the budget. Close to 4.4 million people are targeted for nutritional support where more than 600,000 of the needy are children under five years of age. Another 2.7 million displaced people and returnees will benefit from emergency shelter and non-food assistance.

The reason for the spike in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance was not related to climate and natural hazards as has been the case in previous displacements. The nation topped the list of newly displaced people last year with 1.4 million people being uprooted from their homes.

Among the worst affected areas by internal displacement due to conflicts are Gedeo and Guji zones in the SNNP and Oromia regional states. In April and June of 2018, over a million people were displaced in those areas. To date, around 600,000 people are still displaced from the area, according to sources close to the matter.