Addis Ababa, Jul 9 (IANS): More than 2.93 million children across Ethiopia remain out of school due to a combination of conflict and drought, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has disclosed.

In the latest Ethiopia Situation Report, UNOCHA said 2.53 million children drop out of school due to conflict and 401,000 children are out of school because of drought, Xinhua news agency reported.

The UNOCHA report also stated about 85 per cent of schools in Ethiopia's Tigray region need desks and blackboards, as well as 4,400 schools in parts of Ethiopia's Afar and Amhara regions.

The report further stated school feeding programs for more than one million primary school children have been impacted by school closures.

"Generally, high humanitarian needs are likely to continue well into 2023 due to expanding drought and increased violence," the UNOCHA report disclosed.

The UNOCHA report also disclosed that 20 million people in Ethiopia, including 13 million people in northern Ethiopia have been identified to be food insecure and in need of food assistance.

In some areas of Ethiopia, drought is also compounded with violence, including in the southern Oromia region due to conflict and in the Somali region due to inter-communal conflicts, exacerbating previous humanitarian needs and hindering access to hundreds of thousands of people in need of assistance, according to the UNOCHA.