Responses to appeal for help for flood victims

Donors have begun responding to an appeal by Senegal's government for emergency aid for thousands of people who lost homes and other property as a result of recent heavy rains and cold weather, UN and governmental sources reported. Japan's government said it had decided to provide emergency aid worth some 15 million yen (about US $110,000) to the Senegalese government. The aid comprises tents, blankets and sleeping mats, the government of Japan said in a news release on Friday. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday that the Federal Republic of Germany was providing emergency humanitarian aid amounting to US $220,000, while the US Agency for International Development/Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance was earmarking US $25,000 to meet the immediate relief needs of affected persons. The rains and cold spell - temperatures plunged from 40 to 16 degrees Celsius - swept through northern Senegal on 9-11 January, killing 28 people and affecting another 179,000, OCHA reported, quoting information from the UN Resident Coordinator's Office in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. It said an estimated 470,000 head of livestock died, while the rains demolished close to 20,000 homes and washed away 2,438 hectare of crops. Senegal's government launched an appeal on 17 January for national and international solidarity in favour of the affected regions, Saint Louis and Louga, OCHA reported.