UN provides 11mln USD for drought response in Somalia

The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) will release 11 million U.S. dollars to provide urgent humanitarian assistance for 224,000 drought affected people in the northern parts of Somalia.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Wednesday the fund will help partners to ramp up the provision of critical life-saving humanitarian assistance in the drought-affected areas of Puntland and Somaliland.

"This will include food and nutrition assistance, livestock vaccination, health care services, water and sanitation," OCHA said.

The latest assessment by UN and relief organizations confirms persistently high and alarming levels of food insecurity and malnutrition in Somalia, with an estimated 4.7 million people, nearly 40 percent of the Somali population in need of humanitarian assistance.

Nearly 950,000 of these people are acutely food insecure and struggle every day to meet their food needs. Internally displaced persons make up more than two thirds, or 68 percent of acutely food insecure people and are in dire need of assistance.

According to OCHA, the Commom Humanitarian Fund (CHF)for Somalia has allocated 6.5 million dollars to scale up response in the drought-affected regions to compliment the CERF allocation.

"The allocation will bolster the provision of food and nutrition assistance, healthcare services and water and sanitation services," the UN humanitarian agency said.

It said the allocation will also support priority shelter and protection needs identified in the assessments undertaken in affected areas.

According to OCHA, the depletion of available water resources in affected areas could see the situation worsen in the coming months.

A total of 157 million dollars has been received for humanitarian response in Somalia since the beginning of this year. Enditem