U.N., Africa Union appeal to international community for aid to fight drought in Horn of Africa

Jul 14 2011

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday in Geneva during a news conference with reporters "called on countries to urgently support United Nations agencies in their efforts to respond to the crisis in the Horn of Africa, where more than 11 million people are in need of life-saving assistance as they face the worst drought in decades," the U.N. News Centre reports. U.N. agencies have called for $1.6 billion in aid for the region, but only half of that amount has been received, according to the news service (7/12).

Also on Tuesday, the African Union asked the international community to send aid to Somalia, "where one in three people are suffering from the combined effect of unrest and drought," Agence France-Presse writes. "Close to three million people, that is one in three Somalis, are in need of humanitarian assistance," the AU said in a statement (7/12).

The aid organization Care said on Tuesday that the number of cases of rape and violence against women in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya are rising, SAPA/News24 reports. "Citing overall figures from the U.N. refugee agency, Care said 358 incidents were reported from January to June, up from 75 in the same period last year," the news agency writes. New arrivals to the camp - which currently houses 380,000 people, four times its capacity - must settle on the outskirts, where there is no security, health care or sanitation facilities, the news agency notes (7/13).