Addis Ababa, Dec 25 (IANS): The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) has appealed for a funding worth $116.5 million to help 2.3 million vulnerable Ethiopians.

In a statement on Thursday, Unicef said it needs 1the funding to meet the needs of 2.3 million people between December 2020 and January 2021 living in the conflict-ridden northern Tigray state and the adjacent localities in neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions.

The UN agency had already developed an emergency response plan for three months from November 2020 to January 2021.

The plan was updated on Thursday to readjust to the needs and requirements of vulnerable people living in the three Ethiopian regional states.

"The plan seeks to increase the readiness of the humanitarian community in Ethiopia to sustain relief assistance to the already existing vulnerable people in Tigray," the Unicef statement said.

"The plan also seeks to prepare the humanitarian community to respond to the protection and other needs of an additional case load that are likely to be affected in Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions by the crisis in December 2020 and January 2021," it added.

Tigray alone currently hosts various categories of vulnerable groups including 750,000 non-displaced people, 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 96,000 Eritrean refugees.

The Unicef humanitarian response plan also targets 34,000 IDPs living in Amhara regional state as well as over 25,000 IDPs living in Afar regional state.