UNITED NATIONS: Valerie Amos, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination (OCHA), declares more aid is needed to handle the scope of the drought-driven famine in the Horn of Africa

Record ID: 455614

  • Title: UNITED NATIONS: Valerie Amos, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination (OCHA), declares more aid is needed to handle the scope of the drought-driven famine in the Horn of Africa
  • Date: 18th August 2011
  • Summary: MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (AUGUST 13, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM MALNUTRITION IN BANADIR HOSPITAL VALERIE AMOS ARRIVES AT HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF AMOS SPEAKING TO MOTHERS WITH SICK CHILDREN
  • Embargoed: 2nd September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA7IF7QYXVKWVPJK3QJQ0HQ48BO
  • Story Text: After her recent trip to the region, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief Valeria Amos warned more aid is needed to confront the growing famine on the Horn of Africa.
    "We've demonstrated, I think, how much can be accomplished when aid agencies are given the resources they need and can get to where they need to get to, but we're faced with still spreading famine in Somalia and with such a scale of suffering that every effort needs to be made and sustained in the months ahead," Amos, the Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said on Wednesday (August 17).
    "That's why we are still appealing for an additional, just under, $1.2 billion dollars (USD). There are still many lives that need to be saved in the Horn of Africa."
    Donors have announced pledges in recent weeks to increase aid to the region. A British package includes 25 million pounds for UNICEF to provide 192,000 people with two months of supplementary rations and to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children against measles and polio, and a further 4 million pounds are earmarked for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation to support the treatment and vaccination of more than 2 million animals weakened by drought, on whom 70,000 livestock owners depend.
    Japan has also pledged about $600,000 worth of aid to the U.N. refugee agency to help famine victims at the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, home to 440,000 Somali refugees.
    The Organisation of the Islamic Conference pledged $350 million at an emergency summit in Istanbul.
    "We have to remember that the needs are not limited to Somalia. Millions of people are also struggling in Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. And even as Kenyans and Ethiopians confront the impact of the drought on their own communities, they're hosting hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled conflict and famine and now live in vast overcrowded camps," explained Amos.
    Somalia has been mired in violence and is awash with weapons since the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. First warlords, then Islamist militants stepped into the power vacuum, reducing a string of Western-backed governments to impotence.
    Earlier this month, however, the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels pulled most of their troops out of Mogadishu, epicentre of their bloody struggle.
    Their retreat effectively left the government in control of the entire capital for the first time since the civil war began in the early nineties, although Somali troops and African peacekeepers still encounter pockets of rebel resistance.
    Somalia is among the world's most corrupt nations and in recent days has been hit by allegations that food aid intended for famine victims was being stolen and sold for a profit.
    The U.N. World Food Programme said on Monday it was investigating claims of theft and sought to assure Somalis there would be no reduction in food aid flows.
    Thousands of refugees have been making the treacherous journey from the worst-hit drought areas, mostly under the control of rebels, to Mogadishu to seek access to food. There they generally stay at one of several overcrowded makeshift camps in Mogadishu. Cholera has broken out in parts of the capital as well as in other areas of the country.
    The British charity Oxfam said it would begin airlifting 47 tonnes of water supplies and hygiene materials to Mogadishu on Thursday to help more than 120,000 people get clean water.
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