Emergency Lifesaving Response in Kurfa Chele Woreda, East Hararge Zone ltpgtThe humanitarian situation in Ethiopia has been deteriorating for consecutive years since 2019 resulting in increased humanitarian needs in several locations including the East Hararge of the Oromia region. Concurrent crises such as conflicts, violence, and climate change that resulted in prolonged drought and floods, rising living costs, and inflated food prices are the major factors driving the humanitarian crises and raising the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance. The report from FEWSNET (published in May 2024) the February to May 2024 belg rainfall season has generally been largely favorable, facilitating belg crop development, land preparation, and planting of long-cycle meher crops like maize, sorghum, and groundnuts. Most belg crops are in good condition and in a normal vegetative state. However, in areas of East and West Hararghe zones of Oromia and along the Rift Valley, a two to four-week dry spell occurred in March and led to some delays in planting. ltbrgtRecent surveys revealed a critical nutrition situation in Ethiopia, with a high prevalence of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), especially in drought-affected locations of Oromia among other regions (ENCU flush update Feb 2024). The update also indicated the national SAM caseload, numbers are high- Oromia has the highest SAM caseload in terms of the number of needs, even if the number of SAM cases has reduced in January 2024, the proportion of Oedemas is quite high in some areas. According to the Multi-agency BELG assessment for the zone, total of 7,992 SAM cases and 84,811 MAM cases were reported between March to May 2024. The Proxy GAM rates of the Zone was 15.4%, when compared with last year malnutrition increased and rated as humanitarian emergency. The past 3 months SAM admission rate was very high, each month above 6776 cases enrolled to OTP and above 1303 cases admitted to SC. Furthermore, cholera/AWD and malaria outbreaks are observed with 1353 and 1418 cases reported respectively from Woredas of the Zone during March – May 2024. Shortage of supplies to respond to the outbreak is the main challenge reported in relation to the outbreak. The main insufficiency raised was medical supply, infection prevention control supply and budget for different prevention and control activities. The assessment also revealed that the food security situation has deteriorated in most areas particularly in some woredas like Kurfa Challie and Midhega Tola. Wilting and dried crop seeds such as maize and sorghum due to the absence of rain in Kurfachele and other woredas were observed. Furthermore, emaciated physical conditions of livestock have also been observed. If weather conditions do not improve pasture availability, the physical conditions of livestock may deteriorate. Livestock migration from Kurfachale and other woredas to adjacent river valley have also been reported. In light of the sever humanitarian situation observed, CARE is proposing to implement multi sector response in East Haraghe through nutrition, health and WASH interventions in Kurfa Chele Woreda of East Hararghe. CARE plans to reach a total of 91,145 individuals with an integrated multisector response and addresses several needs of the target community thereby improving the living conditions of the crisis-affected community. ltbrgtlt/pgt