China has announced emergency food aid to help Somalia deal with drought amid worsening drought in the Horn of the African nation.
Speaking to the media on Thursday in Mogadishu, Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xue Bing said China is going to provide emergency food aid to Somalia and other countries affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa.
“China has announced emergency food aid to Somalia to assist Somalia deal with drought,” special envoy for the Horn of Africa affairs Xue Bing said.
The other countries China will provide a batch of emergency food aid to are Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
The envoy also noted that he will be visiting Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti in the coming days to implement the “Outlook on Peace and Development in the Horn of Africa.”
The remarks by the envoy came just days after after Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble held meeting with international community and called on the donors to involve themselves in the ongoing emergency relief efforts to mitigating the biting effects of the drought.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the drought emergency is expected to get worse ahead of the next rainy season in April, noting that cases of measles and acute watery diarrhoea /cholera are on the rise.
OCHA said additional funding for priority sectors is urgently required to save lives and livelihoods, adding that local communities, authorities and humanitarian partners continue scaling up assistance within available resources.