Brussels, 03/08/2010 (Agence Europe) - In response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Sahel and Sudan, the European Commission is requesting that funds are used from the budgetary reserve for emergency aid. €30 million of this would be used to help those most vulnerable in the Sahel and who require emergency food aid. €10 million will be orientated to those in need in Sudan. This announcement was made on Tuesday 3 August by the Commission in a press release.
This additional €40 million will require approval from the Parliament and the Council (as the budgetary authority) and will provide a boost to operations being carried out on the ground by the Red Cross and United Nations organisations and partners of the Commission's humanitarian aid service (ECHO) partners. This aid will help provide food assistance to over 500,000 extra beneficiaries until harvest time in October.
Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva declared in this connection that, “Thanks to the timely and significant food assistance funded by the European Commission and the good work of our partners over the past months many lives have been saved. However climatic, economic and nutritional conditions have further worsened for millions of people living in the "drought belt" of Sahel but also in Sudan, where people already suffer from a conflict situation. We need to do more and we must act quickly if we want to avoid adults and children dying from starvation. The next few months until the next harvest will be a critical time. With the additional funding that we have requested we will be able to help hundreds of thousands more people more to survive through this hungry period".
The countries most affected by the food crisis in the Sahel region are Niger and Chad. Currently, over 10 million people in the Sahel region are at risk of food insecurity. Of these over 7 million are in Niger and 4 million are considered to be severely food insecure.
This extra €30 million will bring the total humanitarian aid funds allocated by the Commission to fighting malnutrition in the Sahel since the end of 2009 to €98 million. When unprecedented amounts of rain ruined the harvests, the Commission immediately allocated €10 million in December 2009. In response to the worsening food crisis in the region, the Commission allocated a further €20 million in January 2010, €24 million last June and €14 million to Chad. Kristalina Georgieva also visited the region on 3 June last to examine the scale of the food crisis in the Sahel. (EUROPE 10151). (A.N.)