ADDIS ABABA, April 29 (Xinhua) -- The overall humanitarian situation in northern Ethiopia remains dire, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Friday.

       UNOCHA, in its periodic situation update, said despite efforts to mobilize resources and scale-up the response, it has not reached the required scope and scale required to respond to the several crises in northern Ethiopia.

       In the Afar Region, a recent nutrition assessment conducted across four sites for internally displaced people (IDP) indicated a proxy global acute malnutrition rate of 36 percent, a moderate malnutrition rate of 30 percent, and a severe acute malnutrition rate of 6 percent.

       The lack of adequate treatment services for the moderately malnourished people in the IDP sites; gaps in water, sanitation and hygiene services and insufficient food being distributed are worsening the IDPs' nutrition status, it warned.

       In the Amhara Region, humanitarian partners are facing access challenges to reach conflict-affected populations, UNOCHA said.

       In the Tigray region, of 18,597 children under five screened during the reporting period, 5,176, or 27.8 percent, had global acute malnutrition, of which 584 children were severely malnourished, UNOCHA said.

       It said the prospects for harvesting even half of last year's crop production during the 2022 main cropping season are bleak unless sufficient amounts of seeds and fertilizers are delivered ahead of the planting season in Tigray.

       According to UNOCHA, the education of children continues to be impacted across the conflict affected areas, in which an estimated 1.39 million children in Tigray are entering their third year without access to learning.

       With the relative improvement in humanitarian road access into Tigray since April 1, nearly 3,400 metric tons of food was brought into the region through the three humanitarian convoys that have so far reached Mekelle from Semera, it was noted.

       Despite the progress, UNOCHA said, the scale and available resources are not near enough to meet the identified needs.

       Humanitarian aid is recently heading to the Tigray region after the Ethiopian government and the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) agreed to a conditional cessation of hostilities and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid into the region.

       The TPLF and the Ethiopian National Defense Force, backed by allied forces, have been engaged in an 18-month conflict that has reportedly left tens of thousands of people dead and millions others in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

       The Ethiopian parliament designated the TPLF as a terrorist organization in May 2021.