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UN Launches $22M Appeal to Tackle Ethiopian Displacement Crisis

by Lisa Schlein

   GENEVA --

   The U.N. migration agency is launching an appeal for $22.2 million to
   provide life-saving assistance for hundreds of thousands of people
   displaced by communal violence in southern Ethiopia.

   Fighting among local communities over pasture land and water resources
   along the border of Ethiopia's Gedeo and West Guji regions has
   displaced some 970,000 people since April.

   The spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Joel
   Millman, said this rapid displacement has resulted in the loss of
   livelihood, a disruption of services and significant damage to
   infrastructure.

   He said the agency does not have enough money to deal with a crisis of
   this scale. He said the appeal will assist 400,000 displaced in the
   Gedeo and West Guji regions over the next six months.

   Millman told VOA people are living under very precarious conditions, so
   more than half of the $22 million appeal will be used for emergency
   shelters and non-food items.

   "People are sleeping in the open. They have a single sheet of
   tarpaulin, often sleeping in dirt or mud underneath them. So, shelter
   is, of course, of the utmost importance. It is the rainy season and
   people left usually carrying nothing but what they were wearing. We
   know they are in need of everything," he said.

   Millman said people are clustering in different reception areas seeking
   help of every kind. He said the IOM will provide assistance to the
   displaced in collective sites as well as to those living in host
   communities.