Ethiopia is to pass a supplementary budget worth 122 billion birr (R39.55 billion) to assist in financing programs to rehabilitate areas devastated by war and offer humanitarian relief, the country's finance ministry announced on Thursday.
The budget for the chronically indebted country is significantly greater than previously announced. According to the government-affiliated news agency Fana, the administration requested a $102 million (R1.62 billion) additional budget on Monday "to be utilized for the rehabilitation of those afflicted by war and strife."
"The additional funding will be used to ensure the country's security, humanitarian assistance, and other important government functions," the ministry stated on its Facebook page.
Parliament must approve the request, which is anticipated to do so, but the ministry did not specify how the funds would be raised.
For more than a year, the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the federal government and its allies have been at war. Thousands have been slain and millions have been displaced by the fighting.
Humanitarian workers have taken the brunt of the fighting.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Thursday that one of its staff members was assassinated in northern Ethiopia, but provided no other information.
