Brussels, 25/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - All eyes are on the Horn of Africa and the response is underway in Europe and across the world to save the lives of the 12 million people in the face of worsening famine, in particular in Somalia. Ahead of the extraordinary FAO meeting in Rome on 25 July, the organisation's Director General Jacques Diouf called for $1.6 billion to be made available urgently for the coming year. On Saturday, the Commission announced that it was making €27.8 million in emergency humanitarian aid available immediately. This money will help provide food assistance and nutrition to the most vulnerable households in Somalia, and also to maintain animal health and protect livestock in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. This is only the first instalment of the massive additional aid being pledged to try to avoid a major humanitarian disaster in this region of Africa suffering from the most severe drought and famine since 1950. Member states, too, will send aid. France, which organised the extraordinary meeting, announced on Monday that it was doubling its aid, taking it to €10 million, but the international donors' conference, scheduled for Nairobi, Kenya, on Wednesday 27 July will no doubt provide the opportunity for more pledges of aid to be made. Announcing the stepping up of aid by the Commission, Humnitarian Aid and Crisis Response Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, who visited Kenya and Somalia at the weekend said: “This unprecedented crisis in the Horn of Africa needs an unprecedented response. For this reason, in addition to the new aid of €27.8 million, I have begun the process to mobilise €60 million more to relieve the suffering of so many people”. With the Commission having already made €70 million available, the total emergency humanitarian aid to the region will come to almost €158 million.
The people who have currently fled their country number 800,000, half living in the overcrowded Dadaab camps in Kenya, close to the border with Somalia. “Every day, more than 30,000 Somalis cross their country's borders to Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food and security. We all have to increase our efforts”, the commissioner added. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, half of the children aged under five arriving in the refugee camps are suffering from severe malnutrition. The crisis is expected to worsen in the next four months. In 2011, contributions from member states (in descending order of magnitude: the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Estonia) comes to some €93 million. On 18 July, five member states announced additional contributions: Denmark (€12.85 million), Germany (€10.1 million), Italy (€7.5 million), Luxembourg (€2.4 million), and the United Kingdom (£60 million). (A.N./transl.rt)