Pope’s charity for Somalia

(July 16, 2011) The Pontifical Council Cor Unum is sending €50,000 (equivalent to $70,700 US dollars) to drought-stricken Somalia as a sign of Pope Benedict XVI's concern and solidarity.Vatican Radio reported the pontifical council donation, directed to Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti, who is the apostolic administrator in Mogadishu. UNICEF reported Thursday that "the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world has been declared in the Horn of Africa. "The food crisis is complicated particularly in southern Somalia where Muslim fundamentalists have prevented aid from reaching the needy. The U.N. aid group stated that more than a half million children in Somalia are acutely malnourished, with some areas of the south seeing one in three children in this state. "Somalia is the epicenter of this disaster," UNICEF explained, "because an extremely fragile situation, characterized by conflict and insecurity, has escalated at the same time as climatic and price changes were hitting hard on the population."