REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW YORK -- UN agencies and its partners have warned that the El Nino weather phenomenon had caused water shortages in Ethiopia, threatening its food security and putting millions at risk of malnutrition, a UN spokesman said here on Tuesday.

"The number of people requiring emergency food assistance has increased to 8.2 million but there are fears that this figure will continue to grow," Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"A well-coordinated humanitarian response is already underway and expanding rapidly, although the scale of the developing emergency exceeds resources available to date," he said.

In late October, East African countries said that they were crippled by financial constraints to mitigate the impact of El Nino whose effects are already being felt in some regions.

The El-Nino weather phenomenon, characterized by a warming in the Pacific Ocean, is set to strengthen over the coming months and persist into 2016. When El Nino occurs, rainfall patterns shift, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events.

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