Britain Pledges Financial Aid for Drought-Hit Kenya

|PIC1|Britain has responded to the announcement on Tuesday by the Kenyan government that several million people face starvation in the country, by providing £3million towards drought relief, reports Reuters.

Britain’s aid minister, Hilary Benn, who is currently visiting Kenya, also announced that Britain would donate £55million towards primary education.

Church Mission Society Ireland has launched an emergency appeal, 'Food for Thought', to respond to the catastrophe in close collaboration with local partners.

CMSI aims to reach 14,000 people across 16 locations, with a particular focus on young children, mothers with small babies, the elderly and the sick, across 16 locations.

Just £5 will feed a family of six, on survival rations (maize and beans), for one week.

"People have a confidence in the Church and will look to Church leaders for guidance and support," said the CMSI Appeal. "This is our chance to reach out and help the Diocese of Kajiado in their time of need - as they in turn respond to this immediate crisis and then look to help communities recover from its impact."

President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, declared the drought a national disaster, as the government blaming a severe lack of rain for three consecutive years for the 2.5 million people nearing starvation in the east African country.

Somalia and Ethiopia are the worst hit by the drought after Kenya, with a total of six million people now at risk of severe hunger across the Horn of Africa.

Two the three million pounds donated by the British government will be used to provide the drought-hit areas with water, while the remaining third will be put to famine relief.

|TOP|Benn is expected to visit the remote north-eastern district of Wajir later on Tuesday, an area that has already reported eight fatalities caused by the drought, although health officials are expecting the number to rise owing to Wajir’s remoteness and lack of medical facilities.

Meanwhile, ACT/Caritas has been at the scene of another humanitarian crisis on the African continent.

With more than two million people now living in makeshift camps or with host families, and a massive 3.5 million people remaining without food, Darfur remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis according to the UN.

In its help to thousands of refugees, the joint Action by Churches Together/Caritas programme has, over the last 18 months, become one of the largest NGO emergency programmes in Darfur.

The programme continues to construct or rehabilitate clinics and hospitals and water points, as well as provide simple shelter materials and kitchen sets to 65,000 households.

“In the short term we have to provide the shelter, water and health care services, which protect vulnerable lives, but in the long term we must use our position to foster peace and reconciliation”, said Anthony Mahony, Humanitarian Officer for the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).

“It is crucial for CAFOD to stand by the people of Darfur as long as they are in need,” said Mahony.