key message
• In February 2024, an estimated 74 million people in the region were highly food insecure and in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. This includes 15.8 million people in Ethiopia under the 2024 Ethiopia Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), plus 58.2 million people according to an IPC analysis of 10 of the 13 countries covered by the FSNWG. Of these, 46.4 million lived in seven of the eight IGAD member states.
• Sudan’s food crisis is expected to continue to worsen due to food availability constraints, trade route and market blockages, soaring commodity prices, livelihood disruptions, limited humanitarian access, and widespread displacement.
• The nutritional situation across the region remains a major concern, with an estimated 13.1 million children under the age of five suffering from acute malnutrition, of whom 3.2 million are severely malnourished.
• The number of forcibly displaced people in the region continued to rise, to an estimated 18.59 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 5.24 million refugees and asylum seekers.
Sudan is experiencing the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 11.4 million people displaced within and outside its borders, 8.4 million of whom have been displaced since the outbreak of the ongoing conflict.
• The March-May (MAM) rainy season of 2024 will be wetter than normal in most parts of the region, especially southern Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and northwestern Tanzania. is expected to fall.
