Nearly half a million Kenyans will need assistance in the coming
weeks and months as their country is still being plagued by
political unrest and violence, the United Nations said on
Friday.
So far 250,000 people have been displaced in Kenya and U.N.
agencies are preparing to launch a joint appeal for humanitarian
operations in the country, Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a news
briefing in Geneva.
Byrs said the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund had given
approval for an initial allocation of 7 million U.S. dollars for
aid operations in Kenya.
The bulk of that amount will go to traditional areas such as
food, health, water, shelter and sanitation, she added.
Meanwhile, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday that it
had started for the first time food distributions in the slum areas
of Nairobi, in collaboration with the Kenyan Government and the
Kenyan Red Cross.
The objective is the help 33,000 persons and to provide them
with one week of rations, WFP spokesperson Christiane Berthiaume
said in Geneva.
To date, the WFP has distributed a complementary food ration
to46,000 internally displaced persons, in addition to 71,000 who
had already received cereals provided by the Kenyan government and
distributed by the Kenyan Red Cross.?
(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2008)
