EC gives €2 million for victims of ethnic clashes

The European Commission (EC) is to provide 2 million Euros-worth of humanitarian aid to victims of ethnic tensions in northern Kenya next year, the commission said in a statement on Thursday.

"It will finance humanitarian operations to improve the situation of up to 450,000 people," the EC said. "Measures will cover their needs concerning nutrition, water and sanitation, as well as the protection of those caught up in the ethnic clashes."

At least 70 people were killed and another 6,000 displaced in Marsabit district in July during clashes between two communities. Between January and March 2005, dozens of people were killed and thousands more displaced around the Kenya-Somalia border in similar clashes.

"Kenya is one of the world's least-developed countries. The level of poverty and unemployment leaves its northern and northeastern areas, bordering Somalia, Ethiopia and Uganda, vulnerable to crime and insecurity," the statement said. "The effect is an ever-growing and increasing cycle of ethnic tension and violence."

"There are no indications that the number of refugees and internally displaced people will diminish in the near future, quite the opposite," it added.

The aid, which will be channelled through the EC's Humanitarian Aid, ECHO, will include nutritional support, the rehabilitation of existing boreholes, water tanks, shallow wells and cattle pens and the establishment of protection centres for counselling victims of ethnic violence.