Somali president appeals for aid as famine threatens Horn of Africa

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2005

NAIROBI (AFP) — Somalia's transitional president appealed for 60 million dollars in urgent aid for some two million southern Somalis facing severe food and water shortages amid an increasing threat of famine across large swaths of the drought-stricken Horn of Africa.

In a statement released as drought and pre-famine conditions have triggered dire warnings that many more millions are at risk of starvation in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed urged donors not to forget about Somalis in need.

"There is a humanitarian emergency throughout southern Somalia," he said, describing the situation as "volatile" among the mainly nomadic pastoralist population in the area. "All the livestock and an estimated two million people face that danger."...