(July 22, 2011) The United Nations says it is bolstering its aid efforts for the
drought-hit regions of East Africa. The UN declared a famine in two regions of southern
Somalia on Wednesday saying 3.7 million people risk starvation there. The World Food
Program (WFP) says it will begin providing food for 175,000 people in the Gedo region
of southern Somalia in the coming days. WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella told reporters
in Geneva that the U.N. food agency also aims to provide aid to 40,000 people in the
Afgoye region and will start airlifts to the capital Mogadishu in the coming days.
The global body says tens of thousands of people have already starved to death in
Somalia and thousands are streaming across the borders to Ethiopia and Kenya daily.
Earlier on Thursday Somali Islamist rebels accused the UN of exaggerating the severity
of the drought gripping the south of the country and of politicizing the humanitarian
crisis. The south of the Horn of Africa country is largely controlled by the al Qaeda-linked
militants whose four-year insurgency is widely blamed for exacerbating the impact
of the drought.