El Nino is causing drought in Ethiopia were 4.5
million could be in need of food aid, says the United Nations’ World Food
Programme.
Hardest-hit areas are Ethiopia's eastern Afar and
southern Somali regions.
A government spokesman said they were prepared for
hunger and have stockpiles ready.
In August, the Ethiopian government said that it had
allocated $35 million US to deal with the crisis, but the United Nations says
it needs $230m by the end of the year to attend to the crisis.
"The absence of rains means that the crops don’t
grow, the grass doesn’t grow and people can’t feed their animals," new
agency El Jazeera quotes David Del Conte, UNOCHA'S chief in Ethiopia, said.
Experts say it could be a major problem for the country's
economy, as agriculture generates about half of the country's income.
Approximately 44 percent of children under five years
old are severely chronically malnourished, or stunted, and nearly 28 percent
are underweight, according to the CIA World Factbook.
UNICEF says that about 264,515 children will require
treatment for acute severe malnutrition in 2015 while 111,076 children were
treated for severe acute malnutrition between January and May 2015.
