Mogadishu, May 08: Drought has forced thousands of people from Somalia to flee into Ethiopia, says a World Food Program (WFP) official.
“They [Somalis] all had the same story; it’s hunger,” WFP spokeswoman in Ethiopia Judith Shuler said on Thursday.
About 1,600 Somalis arrive daily at refugee camps in southeast Ethiopia, already home to over 110,000 refugees.
Two large camps in the region are already overcrowded and a new one that was set up last week already houses 12,000 refugees, AFP reported.
“We do what we can, but people when they arrive are in very bad shape and have very high malnourishment,” said Sabine Wahning, a UN refugee agency program officer.
The severe drought has also forced thousands of other Somalis into Kenya.
The United Nations also announced that 2.8 million people in Somalia need emergency aid.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the drought, touted as the worst in 60 years in the Horn of Africa, has impacted more than 10 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti.
——Agencies