The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is stepping up its emergency operation to assist more than half a million people in areas affected by the drought and armed violence in Somalia, and in Ethiopia, over the next five months.

The severe drought is compounding an already appalling humanitarian situation in an area debilitated by sporadic armed confrontations that have forced thousands of families to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people, including those affected in north-eastern Kenya, are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The ICRC is particularly concerned about the situation in Somalia, which has endured 15 years of armed conflict and lawlessness and lacks basic health and education services. It has the highest number of weapon-wounded casualties in the whole of Africa, and tens of thousands of families are internally displaced persons in their own homeland. It has been reported that there is such fierce competition for water in some of the worst drought affected areas that children have been wounded by animals fighting them for water at wells.

In coordination with other humanitarian organizations, and in partnership with the Somali Red Crescent, the ICRC is focusing its assistance activities on southern Somalia, where the drought has hit hardest.

The organization has started distributing food to 48,000 people in Bakool and to 54,000 in the Gedo and Bay regions. Families will receive enough maize, pulses and vegetable oil to last two months. This help will continue until the next harvest in July, although the success of the crop will depend on the results of the rainy season due to begin in April.

Last month the ICRC started buying some 25,000 goats and sheep from local farmers to feed 150,000 internally displaced people, trucking drinking water to more than 80,000 people and repairing dozens of boreholes, wells and rainwater catchments. The ICRC has been active in Somalia since 1977, and carries out over 300 water, health, agricultural and veterinary projects each year.

In Ethiopia, the drought mainly affects the southern parts of the Somali Regional State. The ICRC is helping more than 300,000 people by improving access to drinking water, providing free treatment for livestock, distributing food and seed, and providing medical items for health facilities.

(extracts of ICRC press relaese of the 15/02/06, for more information see : http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/somalia-news-150206?opendocument)