|
Life saving efforts continue in the Horn of Africa
22.08.2011 09:17 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
Distribution of relief aid in the drought stricken Horn of Africa region continues, although lack of funding and disease outbreaks are compounding the relief efforts according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The UN World Food Programme(WFP) is boosting nutritional support for more than 90,000 children at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.
WFP is also working with UNICEF and other partners to provide school meals to nearly 600,000 Kenyan children in the worst hit areas.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR says it has reached 180,000 internally displaced people in southern and central Somalia over the past two months.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than half of all diarrhoea cases reported in Mogadishu were among children under the age of five. Marixie Mercado is from UNICEF.
«As the data on cholera and measles makes clear, what is happening in Somalia is more than a food crisis, it is a crisis for child survival. A healthy child would survive a bout of diarrhoea, but severe malnutrition and cholera and measles can be a lethal combination for children.»
WHO and UNICEF are to begin a massive measles vaccination campaign this week end to reach over 2.5 million children in south and Central Somali.
Also available:
|
| |
|
|