Citation
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuter) - More than 20 million people are at risk
of malnutrition or starvation in East Africa as a threatened drought
adds to conflict-related refugee problems, U.S. aid officials said.
They said a coordinated international effort was needed to prevent
widespread famine affecting the so-called Greater Horn region with a
food shortfall of up to 757,000 tonnes.
We need to step in again as we did so successfully in 1992 and through
a joint international coordinated response try to prevent famine from
occurring on a massive scale due to drought,
Agency for International
Development official Lois Richards told reporters.
According to U.S. and United Nations figures, drought-related food
shortages were being experienced by nearly 11 million people in in
Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda.
War-torn Somalia, where the United States ended a peacekeeping mission
last month, and Burundi were also facing food shortfalls.
The region has more than 2.7 million refugees and 7.2 million people
displaced in their own countries.
Richards said the United States last week asked other governments to
respond now to the looming crisis.
She said the World Food Programme had recently asked for a United
Nations international donors meeting for East Africa and U.S. aid
officials had urged it be called as soon as possible.
She said Washington had reinforced the request with approaches to
individual donor countries to start responding now.
In the current fiscal year the United States had provided $214 million
in food aid to the Greater Horn, out of $319 million allocated to
Africa, and additional aid was being sent to the World Food Programme
for drought and civil disaster relief, Richards said.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
