Exactly three months ago, the United Nations declared famine in Somalia. Throughout the entire Horn of Africa, drought has thrown more than 13 million people into a humanitarian crisis with no quick fix in sight. My colleagues and I have already shared our impressions about what we have seen in the region – and you certainly have seen the shocking images of hunger and misery from the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya. The situation in Dadaab is more serious than ever, but it is not the only hot spot – which is why today I have invited ECHO’s regional information officer Bea Spadacini to tell you more about Dollo Ado, another camp where humanitarian struggle daily to save, cure and feed people.
For several months now, the world has been hearing about the drought which ravages the Horn of Africa, leaving millions of people at risk of starvation in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The media have paid a lot of attention to the Dadaab refugee camps in Northern Kenya. Built for 90,000 people, the camps now host almost half a million. And they keep growing. Read the full entry
Number of views: 2659
I am preparing to travel to the Horn of Africa again – this time to Ethiopia. Tomorrow I will attend the pledging conference on the drought and hunger, organised by the African Union with the goal to find an African solution to an African problem. Africans are also showing solidarity with the starving, the refugees and all the other drought-afflicted people in the Horn – and to tell us more about this, I have invited Bea Spadacini, our humanitarian information officer in Nairobi, to be my guest blogger today. 
We, the Commission, deliver European humanitarian aid in partnership with the world’s best respected organisations on the field. You certainly know most of them – UN agencies like the High Commissioner for Refugees, international organisations like the Red Cross, NGOs like Save the Children. This cooperation guarantees that our aid – your aid – is delivered in the most efficient and professional aid to the people who need it.
I am currently flying back to Nairobi from the remote arid lands of the pastoral clans of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where the impact of the drought would have been far worse if not for some remarkable projects which European taxpayers are funding.