EUROPE’S HUMANITARIAN aid commissioner told of “heartbreaking” scenes in Somalia and Kenya as people succumb to starvation, exhaustion and disease in famine-ravaged parts of the Horn of Africa.
Kristalina Georgieva called for the delivery of more emergency assistance within Somalia as the European Commission released €27.8 million for the immediate relief effort and agreed to mobilise another €60 million. The EU executive has already provided €70 million to the region this year.
Ms Georgieva told reporters in Brussels that a “very, very dramatic emergency” was unfolding as the authorities in Kenya and Ethiopia struggle to cope with a huge influx of refugees from Somalia. About 1.5 million people have been internally displaced by the worst drought for 60 years in the region.
The commissioner was speaking as she returned from a visit to the Doolow refugee camp in southern Somalia and the Dadaab camp in northern Kenya.
The UN declared a famine last week in two pockets of southern Somalia and warned it may spread. The affected areas are in the control of al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia affiliated to al-Qaeda. Even as mortality rates rise, al-Shabaab has banned several agencies from providing aid and accused international authorities of exaggerating the crisis.
Ms Georgieva said there was no doubt that the distribution of food within Somalia was being hampered by continuous fighting in the drought-affected area and the complex political situation in the country. She added, however, that some Somalis were now able to seek aid at a camp in Mogadishu, the capital, without having to cross into Kenya and Ethiopia.
“Let’s not forget, once they cross these borders, they turn into refugees who may never return and they are creating tremendous pressure on resources in these countries in very harsh parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.” Ms Georgieva said she saw families at Doolow who had walked for 10, 20 and 30 days cross the border into Ethiopia. “Doolow is the last point. When I talked to them they all would prefer help to be made available to them in Somalia,” she said.
The commissioner said the scene in the Dadaab camp was enough to overwhelm the imagination. The camp was set up 20 years ago to accommodate 90,000 people. Ms Georgieva said some 400,000 are living there now “and more are coming”. The camp authorities could barely cope, she added.
Meanwhile, the United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu yesterday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.
Some 3.7 million Somalis – almost half of the population – are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a “triangle of death” straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Though the UN food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began. “We need to scale up our programmes, and especially the nutrition programmes, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition,” Stephanie Savariaud, a UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters. “Then they need to get hospitalised and it’s much more difficult to save them.”
The UN aircraft carried 10 tonnes of so-called therapeutic food – the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.
The agency said it has an additional 70 tonnes ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days. – (additional reporting Reuters)
