Billions in aid for countries on the Horn of Africa

The pledged money will provide food, water, medicine, shelter and other humanitarian supplies to nearly 32 million people in need in the Horn of Africa. Germany is contributing 210 million euros to the equivalent of around 2.2 billion euros. The International Horn of Africa Donor Conference was organized by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the governments of Italy, Qatar, Great Britain and the USA in cooperation with Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The federal government was also represented.

The United Nations and its partners need a total of seven billion US dollars this year for their relief efforts in the region, in which people are struggling with conflict and drought. Organizations such as the UN children’s charity UNICEF, German World Hunger Aid, Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) called for the humanitarian mission to be fully funded.

Mortality rates far too high

According to the World Food Program, the drought of the past three years has left millions of people in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia struggling with severe hunger. Mortality and malnutrition rates are unacceptably high. Several failed harvests in a row and high transport costs would have triggered a massive increase in food prices.

The fighting in Sudan had further destabilized the region, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “We must act now to prevent the crisis from becoming a catastrophe.”

In Somalia alone, more than a million people have been displaced by drought, flooding and conflict since the beginning of the year. This is more than ever before in such a short time, said the UN refugee agency UNHCR based on its own data and surveys by the Norwegian Refugee Council in Geneva.

408,000 people alone had to give way to masses of water, while another 312,000 sought shelter from the effects of the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa. Mohamed Abdi, Somalia country manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the development gave rise to fears of the worst in the coming months. All the ingredients for a disaster are there.

kle/mak (dpa, epd, kna)