Aid reaches drought-ravaged Somalia

Donor countries will meet on the escalating drought crisis in the Horn of Africa tomorrow, French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said at emergency UN talks in Rome, yesterday.

Mr Le Maire said yesterday’s talks were to, among other matters, “prepare for the donor conference in Nairobi in two days’ time”.

The International Red Cross said it had handed out 400 tonnes of food in drought-hit parts of rebel-held southern Somalia.

“The distribution look place in the Bardera district and passed without incident, with the knowledge of the authorities and the recipients,” ICRC spokesman Yves Van Loo said in Nairobi.

It is the first ICRC-led food drop direct to locals in Shebab-controlled zones since 2009, he said, adding that further food drops will take place in the coming days.

Gedo province lies next to southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, the two areas the UN declared as the worst hit by famine.

UN officials say over the past few months, tens of thousands of people have already been killed by the worst drought in 60 years. It has wrought havoc in war-torn Somalia but has also hit more widely in parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Across the Horn of Africa, UN officials fear that 12 million people face starvation.

International aid agencies are scrambling to find ways to deliver food supplies to those living in the epicentre, parts of Somalia controlled by the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamist group Shebab.

The ICRC said it had distributed 400 tonnes of food supplies, including oil, rice and beans, to about 4,000 families or about 24,000 people in Gedo province on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Bob Geldof, Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard joined other celebrities and activists yesterday in urging world leaders to step up their response to the Horn of Africa crisis ahead of emergency talks in Rome.

“As we write, more than 11 million people are suffering the great agony of the worst famine in Africa for many years,” they said in a joint letter released by One, a poverty campaign group founded by singer and activist Bono.

“It is incomprehensible that in 2011 anyone should die of starvation. $600 million is needed now for our fellow humans. Not a great sum for the world, even in a time of great economic difficulty for some,” the letter read. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation was hosting emergency talks in Rome yesterday as aid groups scrambled to raise money for an estimated 12 million people on the brink of starvation in the drought-stricken region.

“All can and should use this meeting to make their pledges and find this money without reser-vation, prevarication or equivocation,” said the campaigners including actress Kristin Scott Thomas and director Richard Curtis.