Representational Image, credit: EPA/ Tobias Hase
Addis Ababa: The UN Children's Fund estimates it needs $116.5 million for people in the strife-ridden regions of Ethiopia.
Unicef on Thursday appealed for the fund to support 2.3 million people between December 2020 and January 2021 living in the northern Tigray state and in neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions.
The UN agency updated its emergency response plan, developed for three months from November 2020 to January 2021, to adjust to needs of the three Ethiopian states.
"The plan seeks to increase the readiness of the humanitarian community in Ethiopia to sustain relief assistance to the already existing vulnerable people in Tigray," the Unicef statement said.
"The plan also seeks to prepare the humanitarian community to respond to the protection and other needs of an additional case load that are likely to be affected in Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions by the crisis in December 2020 and January 2021," it added.
Tigray alone now hosts 750,000 non-displaced people, 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 96,000 Eritrean refugees.
The Unicef humanitarian response plan also targets 34,000 IDPs living in Amhara regional state as well as over 25,000 in Afar regional state.
IANS report with edits