Ethiopia — National Displacement Report 7 (December 2020 — January 2021)

In order to capture the displacement and return dynamics in Ethiopia, DTM Ethiopia's National Displacement Report combines findings from its Site Assessment (SA) in Section 1 and findings from the Village Assessment Survey (VAS) in Section 2. The Site Assessment tracks the number and multisectoral needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs), while the Village Assessment Survey tracks the number of IDPs who are returning to their communities and their multisectoral needs. VAS is also used to evaluate the absorption capacity of villages receiving returns with a focus on accessibility of services, livelihoods and reintegration. Notably, the impact of COVID-19 on IDPs and villages hosting returning IDPs was also evaluated this round. 

Through Site Assessment (SA), a total of 1.96 million IDPs were identified in 1,222 sites across 11 regions in Ethiopia. Conflict displaced an estimate of 1.2 million IDPs, followed by drought which displaced 331,963 IDPs and seasonal floods which displaced 169,662 IDPs, among other displacement reasons. During the same period, a total of 131,590 IDPs were also tracked through the Emergency Site Assessment (ESA) round 2 which is a monthly tool used to track internal displacement in Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions caused by the crisis in Northern Ethiopia. This was also the first time DTM conducted its Site Assessment tool in Addis Ababa, thus tracking internal displacement in every region in Ethiopia for the first time. Combining the SA and ESA figures brings the total to 2.1 million IDPs identified throughout the country thus far. However, kindly note that there were substantial access and/or security issues throughout Tigray region, Metekel zone in Benishangul Gumz region, the Wallegas and the Hararges in Oromia region and Sheka zone in SNNP region.  

Through Village Assessment Survey, a total of 1.5 million returning IDPs were identified in 1,381 villages across 9 regions. A large majority of returning IDPs (1.4 million) were initially displaced due to conflict while 47,122 returning IDPs were initially displaced due to flash floods and 35,522 returning IDPs due to seasonal floods. The region hosting the largest number of returning IDPs was Oromia region with 821,653 returning IDPs, followed by Somali region with 408,741 returning IDPs.