UN: Over 100,000 Somalis facing famine seek aid in capital

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UN: Over 100,000 Somalis facing famine seek aid in capital

2011-07-27 03:07:23 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- The United Nation (UN) on Tuesday announced that up to 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the last two months.

As of Friday, there were 114,646 Somalis in the Dollo Ado area camps, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. The total number of Somali refugees in Ethiopia is currently over 156,000.

Vivian Tan, spokesperson for the UNHCR said refugees have come in search of food, water, shelter and other vital humanitarian assistance after fleeing famine-hit areas.

In July, an average of 1,000 people per day arrived in Mogadishu, Tan noted, as severe drought has plunged communities in the southern region of Somalia into famine and sent thousands fleeing both to Mogadishu and to neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya. The UN and partner aid agencies are seeking approximately $1.6 billion in aid to assist millions affected by the crisis in Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa region.

Tan noted that the amounts being delivered are not sufficient to meet all of the needs, as she visited the Badbado settlement in Mogadishu on Monday, which is currently housing an estimated 28,000 people.

"This has caused serious crowd crushes and even some looting," she said. "As a result, some of the weakest and most vulnerable are left with nothing, despite the best efforts of agencies and charities."

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Program is hoping that the first in a series of airlifts to Somalia will begin on Tuesday. The planes will bring, among other supplies, ready-to-use therapeutic food destined specifically for severely malnourished children, agency spokesperson Emilia Casella said in Geneva.

To enable people to carry the food and water they are able to obtain, UNHCR said it will begin distributing 4,000 assistance packages for 24,000 people in the coming week, including jerry cans, buckets, pots, plates, bowls, cups and other utensils. The agency has already distributed shelter materials, including plastic sheeting, in Badbado.

Another 40,000 packages containing high-energy biscuits, oral re-hydration solution and water purification tablets, are being procured by UNHCR and will reach an estimated 240,000 people in the coming days.

Furthermore, in the neighboring country of Kenya, UNHCR began an operation on Monday to relocate Somali refugees currently living on the outskirts of the Dadaab refugee camps to a new site known as the Ifo Extension.

Over 500 five-person family tents were erected, with a capacity to accommodate at least 2,500 people. A second site, known as Kambioos, will also open in the next few days, to help decongest the outskirts of Dagahaley refugee camp. The Dadaab camps – whose population has swelled to nearly 380,000 in recent months – have been receiving an average of 1,300 new refugees daily, fleeing conflict, drought, famine and insecurity in Somalia.

With malnutrition levels among the new arrivals still high, the agency stated that the overall nutrition situation in the remote Dollo Ado camps in Ethiopia remains a concern. One in three children under five arriving from Somalia is severely malnourished.

Also, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has launched, along with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, a vaccination campaign targeting over 200,000 children living in drought-affected host communities around the Dadaab refugee settlement. Polio vaccinations and distributions of vitamin A and de-worming tablets are also being integrated into this campaign, UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado stated.

Mercado added that in southern Somalia, where immunization coverage is very low, an integrated measles, tetanus toxoid, vitamin A and de-worming campaign to reach 86,000 women and children in Mogadishu was wrapping up on Tuesday.

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