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ADDIS ABABA. — Ethiopia will run out of emergency food aid for 7,8 million people hit by severe drought by the end of this month, the Government and humanitarian groups have said. Successive failed rains blamed by meteorologists on fluctuations in ocean temperatures known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) have created a series of severe back-to-back droughts in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa region.

In Ethiopia, the number of people now critically short of food is expected to rise by at least 2 million by next month.

Donors, international aid groups and the Government said existing food aid for the current 7.8 million would run out as funds are critically short this year, with Ethiopia receiving only slightly more than half of the $US1.235 billion to meet requirements until July.

“We are in a dire situation,” John Aylieff, the World Food Program’s representative in Ethiopia, said during a field trip to Warder in south-east Ethiopia, one of the country’s hardest-hit areas.

“We’ve got food running out nationally at the end of June. That means the 7.8 million people who are in need of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia will see that distribution cut abruptly at the end of June,” he added.

Along with the drought, Ethiopia also faces an outbreak of what authorities call acute watery diarrhoea, though critics have said the Government should call it cholera instead. Across the Horn of Africa, close to 17 million people need humanitarian aid due to drought. —ABC News.