Iran to send 12th aid cargo to Somalia

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Iran is to dispatch its twelfth humanitarian aid convoy to famine-hit Somalia as part of attempts to help the people of the Horn of Africa nation, Press TV reported.

Head of Iran's Red Crescent Society (IRCS) Public Relations Pouya Hajian said that the twelfth humanitarian aid shipment for drought-stricken Somalia has been loaded into a cargo plane at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The IRCS official added that the 35-ton aid cargo comprising canned food, tents, legumes, rice and flour will be dispatched to Mogadishu's Aden-Adde International Airport on Thursday night.

He said that Iran's eleventh aid convoy for Somalia left Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport for Mogadishu on Thursday.

The 40-ton consignment of the Islamic Republic's humanitarian aid comprised legumes, flour, rice, tents, moquette and milk powder.

Hajian also pointed out that Iran's sixth relief camp in Mogadishu was inaugurated in the presence of IRCS Secretary General Zaher Rostami on Thursday.

The camp, which will be used to provide centralized command for other Iranian camps in the Somali capital, will cover 1,000 Somali families and house a field hospital.

Five hundred Somali families have been settled in every Iranian camp in Mogadishu.

The United Nations says that more than thirteen children out of every 10,000 aged less than five die in the Somalia's famine zone every day.

Reports say that aid agencies can take food supplies to only a limited number of people affected by the disaster since insecurity hinders efforts in much of the country's south.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew the country's former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198128.html.