China donates $10m to tackle drought in Somalia

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FILE - In this Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017 file photo, displaced Somali girls who fled the drought in southern Somalia stand in a queue to receive food handouts at a feeding center in a camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. Somalia's prime minister said Saturday, March 4, 2017 that 110 people have died from hunger in the past 48 hours in a single region as a severe drought threatens millions of people. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File)

China granted the World Food Programme (WFP) 10 million dollars on Wednesday to bolster its humanitarian work in drought-stricken Somalia where more than six million people are food insecure.

WFP Country Director Laurent Bukera said the funds would allow the UN food agency to deploy emergency humanitarian assistance to more than 200,000 people.

“This grant will support Somalis and will allow WFP to deploy emergency assistance to more than 200,000 for probably up to four months assistance,” Bukera said.

China also contributed 2 million dollars to WFP emergency response last year that helped support close to 50,000 children and mothers to address malnutrition in the country, Bukera said.

 

 

He said WFP continued to scale up its humanitarian activities in the Horn of African nation by reaching vulnerable people through its cash-based transfer programme.

The Chinese Ambassador to Somalia, Qin Jian, who hoped that Somalia would overcome the natural disasters and rebuild homes, saidg Beijing had being supporting Somalia for long term.

“China and Somalia enjoy long term friendship. The diplomatic ties between brotherly states began in December in 1960, but relations between the two countries were there six hundred years ago,” he said.

He also said that China carried out 89 projects, including Benadir hospital, National Theater and Stadium in Mogadishu between 1960 and 1991.
Somali Minister of Relief and Disaster Management, Maryam Ahmed thanked the Chinese Government for its contribution toward alleviating the drought situation in the country. (Xinhua/NAN)

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