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NAIROBI/GENEVA. – The UN food agency on Tuesday announced that it is seeking to raise about $450 million for emergency humanitarian assistance to three drought-hit countries in the Horn of Africa. World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director Valerie Guarnieri told Xinhua in Nairobi that Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia have about 10 million people in need of urgent food assistance.
“We are seeking to raise the funds on a country-by-country basis by supporting the individual UN country offices to make the food appeal,” Guarnieri said during an Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) briefing on the current drought situation. Somalia is the country with the biggest need for humanitarian assistance.
“For Somalia we need $350 million in order to scale up emergency relief response to reach 2.9 million people,” Guarnieri added.
The financial assistance will also be used to provide blanket supplementary feeding to support those severely affected by drought. In Kenya, the UN food agency has a $22 million revenue shortfall. “We are looking to source the funds in order to provide drought affected individuals to restore their livelihoods as well as supplement their nutrition,” she said.
Meanwhile, the UN appealed yesterday for $2.1 billion to provide desperately needed aid to millions of people in war-ravaged Yemen this year, warning the country could soon face famine.
“Two years of war have devastated Yemen and millions of children, women and men desperately need our help,” warned UN humanitarian aid chief Stephen O’Brien in a statement.
“Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support to our collective response.”
The appeal from UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations aims to gather funds to help some 12 million of the nearly 19 million people expected to need assistance across Yemen this year. – Xinhua/AFP.
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