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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 04 2011 - 15:27:44 EDT
http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/04/wfp-ethiopias-emergency-food-reserve-near-zero/
WFP: Ethiopia’s Emergency Food Reserve Near Zero
Thursday, August 4th, 2011 at 4:35 pm UTC
Posted 1 minute ago
The head of World Food Program in Ethiopia says the country's emergency food
stocks are almost gone, the latest trouble caused by the drought in the Horn
of Africa.
Abdou Dieng told reporters Thursday that despite incoming aid, Ethiopia
faces a critical shortfall in emergency food supplies. He says a reserve set
up by the government is almost empty.
Dieng also says the WFP is monitoring reports out of neighboring Eritrea
suggesting food shortages there as well. The reports are hard to verify, and
Eritrea's autocratic government has denied the drought is affecting
supplies.
Also Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it hopes to
more than double its Somalia budget so it can feed more than a million
people hit by famine in areas controlled by militant group al-Shabab.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger called for an additional $86 million,
which he says would bring the Red Cross Somalia budget to $155 million and
make it by far the group's largest ongoing humanitarian operation.
Separately, the African Union has postponed a donor conference for the
drought from August 9 to August 25.
The Associated Press quotes a senior AU policy adviser saying the later date
would allow heads of state to attend the conference, to be held in
Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
The United Nations says drought has left more than 12 million people across
the Horn of Africa in need of food aid. The U.N. has appealed for $1.4
billion to help the victims.
On Wednesday, the U.N. declared a famine in three more regions of southern
Somalia. It said famine conditions will likely spread to more areas and
could last until December.
A U.S. aid official has estimated that drought and famine have killed 29,000
Somali children under the age of five in the past 90 days.
At a hearing in Washington Wednesday, U.S. officials and private experts
accused the militant group al-Shabab of preventing people from fleeing the
famine-stricken areas.
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