Brussels, 20/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - Three months after the state of famine was declared in Somalia, the humanitarian situation continues to grow worse in the Horn of Africa. On Thursday 20 October, the European Commission therefore decided to grant a further €24 million in humanitarian aid to assist vulnerable people suffering from the effects of drought in the Horn of Africa region where, today, 13 million people are threatened with famine.
The funds, which come from ECHO (the European Commission's humanitarian and civil protection office), will finance the provision of food rations, drinking water and health care for children suffering from malnutrition, as well as measures for protecting refugees and humanitarian workers in the Dadaab camp, the largest refugee camp in the world located in north-east Kenya, on the border with Somalia.
“Millions of people in the Horn of Africa need our daily help to stay alive. Children are at highest risk, and are particularly vulnerable to the horrible by-product of much expected rains - a spread of diseases like diarrhea, cholera, malaria. The most dramatic needs remain inside Somalia, where we provide life-saving support to over 1.7 million people, often under extremely difficult conditions”, said Kristalina Georgieva, Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. She also reiterates her appeal to the generosity of the international community and advocates greater security for aid workers, making additional funds available for “protecting both the victims of the famine and the humanitarian workers striving to save their lives”.
The new emergency humanitarian aid allocation brings the Commission's humanitarian effort to provide relief for this large-scale humanitarian crisis to €174 million (€62 million for Somalia, €43.8 million for Kenya, €46 million for Ethiopia, and €2.6 million for Djibouti). Since the beginning of the year, the EU (Commission and member states) has made €700 million available for humanitarian aid in response to the crisis, thus placing it at the forefront of international donors. (AN/transl.jl)