Brussels, 22/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Commission announced it would be making EUR 15 million available for the financing of humanitarian aid actions in Asia and in Africa. The package will be used in the following way:
- EUR 2 million are to be used for displaced persons in the Philippines, in the autonomous Muslim region of Mindanao where fighting for independence had taken place. Support will mainly be for the provision of food and water, health care and sanitation, building materials and farming equipment, as well as for the distribution of blankets and mattresses.
- EUR 9 million are earmarked for supplies to the refugee Saharaouis living in camps in the region of Tindouf, in Algeria, in response to the food crisis in these camps (aid of EUR 4.935 million had been released in July last year for the same reasons).
- EUR 1.98 million go to victims of the drought that has lasted in the Horn of Africa for the past three years, and above all to the regions worst hit in southern Ethiopia. The aid will allow the funding of food programmes, public health and veterinary care of cattle.
- EUR 2 million will be made available for supplies of water and care for the cattle in the areas of Kenya also affected by drought. An aid package of EUR 2 million had already been decided this year in the context of ECHO, and aid of EUR 3 million had been adopted in the context of Stabex, for alleviating the consequences of drought.