Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country with over 120 million people, faces a overlapping humanitarian crisis driven by overlapping conflicts, ethnic tensions, climate shocks, and economic pressures. Once hailed as one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, Ethiopia has experienced a dramatic reversal of development gains since 2020. The country's federal system, designed to manage its extraordinary ethnic and linguistic diversity through ethnically defined regional states, has become a source of tension as competing nationalisms and grievances over political representation, land, and resources fuel violence across multiple regions simultaneously.
The war in Tigray, which erupted in November 2020 between federal forces allied with Eritrean troops and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, was one of the deadliest conflicts in recent African history. Over an estimated 600,000 people died from violence, famine, and lack of medical care during the two-year war. A cessation of hostilities agreement signed in Pretoria in November 2022 ended active fighting, but the aftermath continues to shape Ethiopia's humanitarian landscape. Tigray's infrastructure, healthcare facilities, schools, telecommunications, banking systems, was systematically destroyed during the conflict. Recovery has been slow, with limited humanitarian access and ongoing disputes over the status of Western Tigray, occupied by Amhara forces.