Millions face starvation in Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan

The United Nations has warned that millions of people face life threatening shortages of food, aggravated by the global food price crisis, in drought stricken Ethiopia, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Emergency humanitarian aid is desperately needed to avert another calamity, the UN says.

John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, said that 4.6 million people are in need of help in Ethiopia, including 75 000 children suffering from acute malnutrition. "Urgent intervention" was needed to save their lives, he said.

The food agency is currently providing emergency assistance to 3.2 million people in Ethiopia but said it will scale up the assistance. It added, however, that it "urgently needs additional contributions to reach all those in need."

The agency said it will also support the Ethiopian government "in supplying emergency nutritional support to 750 000 of those most vulnerable, including children, pregnant mothers and HIV and AIDS patients.

In addition to distributing million of litres of water each day to nearly half a million people in more than 400 locations, the Red Cross said that it had also provided one month food rations to 100 000 people and stepped up its support to Mogadishu's main hospitals.

Since January, the Red Cross said, 1300 people wounded by weaponry had been admitted to those hospitals, a third of them women and children.

Meanwhile the humanitarian situation was also worsening in Afghanistan, Sir John said, adding that 4.5 million people there, including more than half a million women and children younger than 5 years old, were in need of extra food supplies because of the drought in the northern part of the country and a spike in food prices.

He also condemned attacks against truck food convoys near Kandahar, where much of the food had been burned.