UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator visits

The UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Carolyn McAskie, arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for a three-day visit during which she will hold talks on the severe food crisis in the country, where some 12.6 million people are facing food shortages. McAskie was expected to visit southern Ethiopia, which has been hard hit by the food emergency, UN officials said. Some 1.4 million people in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) – a traditional breadbasket of the country – are faces shortages. "In some areas the population is still suffering from shortage of food despite the interventions of international aid agencies and the government," the UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (EUE), said in a statement ahead her visit. "Reasons for this were an overestimation of prospective harvests during the pre-harvest assessment last year and mistakes during the targeting of food aid beneficiaries. The latter caused delays in food distributions and as a result led to malnutrition mainly among children under five," it said. UN officials said McAskie would aim to highlight the crisis in Ethiopia and stave off shortfalls in funding as the country prepares to face the 'hungry season' - the pre-harvest months when families are most vulnerable. She will also witness on–going relief efforts in SNNPR, such as therapeutic feeding centres for severely malnourished children. Her agenda further includes meeting Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the head of the government’s emergency arm, Simon Mechale, the officials said. McAskie's visit follows a three-day mission to Eritrea, during which she said donor response was "far from sufficient" to meet the food crisis in the Red Sea state.