The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday appealed for 116.5 million U.S. dollars funding to help 2.3 million vulnerable Ethiopians.

In a statement on Thursday, UNICEF said it needs 116.5 million U.S. dollars to meet the needs of 2.3 million people between December 2020 and January 2021 living in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray regional state and adjacent localities in neighboring Amhara and Afar regional states.

UNICEF had already developed an emergency response plan for three months from November 2020 to January 2021.

The plan was updated on Thursday to readjust to the needs and requirements of vulnerable people living in the three Ethiopian regional states.

“The plan seeks to increase the readiness of the humanitarian community in Ethiopia to sustain relief assistance to the already existing vulnerable people in Tigray,” said the UNICEF statement.

“The plan also seeks to prepare the humanitarian community to respond to the protection and other needs of an additional case load that are likely to be affected in Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions by the crisis in December 2020 and January 2021,” the statement further said.

Tigray alone currently hosts various categories of vulnerable groups including 750,000 non-displaced people, 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 96,000 Eritrean refugees.

The UNICEF humanitarian response plan also targets 34,000 IDPs living in Amhara regional state as well as over 25,000 IDPs living in Afar regional state.