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ETHIOPIA: US donates money for refugee feeding

ADDIS ABABA, 11 July (IRIN) - Refugees in Ethiopia are to benefit from a US $1.7 million donation from the US government to help make up food shortages.

The move follows appeals by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) which warned it may be forced to cut rations to thousands of refugees because of a shortfall. WFP said the drop in calories would have hit refugee women and children hardest.

The pledge is part of a US $12.4 million donation to the World Food Programme to "fill critical gaps" in refugee feeding across Africa.

The $1.7 pledge will also help with the massive voluntary repatriation programme for Somali refugees under way in eastern Ethiopia. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees flooded into the
country to avoid war at home and have been living in makeshift camps for the past decade.

So far three of the eight refugee camps in the region have been closed down and the refugees assisted to return to their homes - the majority returning to Somaliland.

The donation will also "allow the repatriation of Somali refugees from camps in eastern Ethiopia to Somaliland to proceed as scheduled", said Sheila Grudem, the refugee programme officer at WFP in Addis Ababa.

The US statement said many refugees were facing difficult times due to "burgeoning" emergency food needs across the globe.

It also called on other donors to "contribute generously" to WFP to help meet food needs for the
rest of the year.

Most of the pledge is made up of "commodity contributions" such as wheat from America through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department for Agriculture.

[ENDS]

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