KENYA: U.N emergency coordinator Valerie Amos urges aid agencies to send more help into Somalia as the region grapples with the effects of its worst drought in 60 years

Record ID: 361792

  • Title: KENYA: U.N emergency coordinator Valerie Amos urges aid agencies to send more help into Somalia as the region grapples with the effects of its worst drought in 60 years
  • Date: 15th August 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Somali) SOMALI REFUGEE, FATMA HASSAN, SAYING: "The situation back in Somalia is getting worse, I lost all the livestock I had and that is why I came here. It took me four days but I lost everything on the way to bandits." REFUGEES QUEUING FOR RATIONS VARIOUS OF RATIONS BEING DISTRIBUTED REFUGEES LOOKING ON WOMAN'S RATION CARD/ WOMAN'S FACE MORE REFUGEES W
  • Embargoed: 30th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya, Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters
  • Reuters ID: LVA9M13R8CBULNGFXUKZPRSRIWDW
  • Story Text: Aid agencies and donors have been urged to scale up their humanitarian operations and donations in Somalia.
    Speaking after visiting Kenya's Dadaab -- the biggest refugee camp in the world -- United Nations emergency coordinator Valerie Amos said that that more aid organisations should take advantage of the improved security situation in Mogadishu.
    Islamists rebels who had been battling the government and a 9,000-strong African peacekeeping force retreated from the capital last weekend, but the threat of guerrilla-style attacks such as suicide bombings remains despite their withdrawal.
    The government and peacekeeping troops however say that they do not control all of the capital even after the rebel withdrawal, placing thousands of Somali refugees who are streaming into Mogadishu searching for food, in danger.
    Amos said some progress was being made in scaling up the refugee operations.
    "It is clear that we need to do much more in terms of being able to provide facilities, support, supplies within Somalia itself and that means of course encouraging colleagues who are working on the political side of things to try and make that progress even faster. But also, our negotiations to get additional support into al-Shabaab controlled territory must continue. But also we should support those who are currently able to operate there," she said.
    The drought and famine have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 in the last three months in southern Somalia alone, according to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates.
    While the humanitarian response to the famine in Somalia has focused on emergency food and shelter handouts, Amos called for more long-term solutions to be found to end the drought cycle in the region.
    "Whilst we deal with the here and now, we must also think about the longer term. We know that the preparedness measures are the longer term resilience measures that some of the governments have put in place are beginning to pay off. So we have to continue with those, we cannot just forget about the longer term because climate change, population growth, environmental degradation and weak governance are all having their impact and we have to deal with each and everyone of those, not just on a national basis, but on a regional basis too," she said.
    Initially set up in 1991 as a temporary solution to the civil war across Somalia after the collapse of Siad Barre's government, Dadaab camp now hosts some and 460,000 refugees with 1,500 said to arrive daily to be registered in Kenya's semi-arid hamlet.
    "The situation back in Somalia is getting worse, I lost all the livestock I had and that is why I came here," said mother of three Fatma Hassan who had just arrived.
    "It took me four days but I lost everything on the way to bandits," said added..
    The U.N warns that about 3.6 million people in Somalia are at risk of starvation. Some 12.4 million people in the Horn of Africa -- including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are affected by drought, according to the United Nations.
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