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| Africa Horn |
| US set to announce $100M in Somalia aid |
| 2011-08-08 |
| Hundreds of thousands of Somali children could die in the country's famine unless more help arrives, a top U.S. official said Monday as Washington prepared to announce $100 million in new famine aid. To highlight the crisis, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden visited a refugee camp on a patch of desert in eastern Kenya where tens of thousands of Somalis have massed. A drought has turned into famine because little aid can reach militant-controlled south-central Somalia. Jill Biden is the highest-profile U.S. visitor to East Africa since the number of refugees coming across the Somali border dramatically increased in July. Biden arrived in a C-130 military transport plane and said she wants to raise awareness and persuade donors to give more. "What I'm asking is for Americans to reach out and help because the situation is dire," said Biden, who met with two Somali mothers and their eight children. "There is hope if people start to pay attention to this." |
| Posted by:Beavis |