The trade and development minister, Mogens Jensen, has earmarked a further 60 million kroner to help aid and relief efforts in and around Somalia, which is enduring a food crisis.
The latest aid package – which still needs the approval of parliament – means that Denmark’s total aid donation to the beleaguered east African nation for 2014 has been increased to 133 million kroner.
“The food crisis in Somalia is gathering momentum and there are now over 1 million people in critical need of food supplies and over 2.1 million who need help not to drop into that category,” Jensen said in a press release.
“Furthermore, there are far too many malnourished children who need our assistance in order to survive.”
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Somali conference in CPH
Some 35 million kroner of the new aid funds have been set aside for UN efforts in the nation, while the remaining 25 million kroner are going to the World Food Program’s (WFP) food security work and distribution of food rations in Somalia and the surrounding region.
The massive and underfinanced crisis means that WFP has revealed that it will be forced to reduce its food rations in Kenyan refugee camps by 50 percent until the end of January 2015.
The humanitarian situation in Somalia has deteriorated recently and an estimated 1.1 million people are internally displaced in the country – the majority of whom are in critical need of food. Additionally, about 1 million Somalis live as refugees in neighbouring countries Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen, where the food situation is also critical.
Copenhagen will play host this week to a huge international conference about Somalia, during which the food crisis and the humanitarian situation will be among the central agenda issues.
