EU aid for drought-affected children

The European Commission has decided to earmark 365,000 euro (about US $345,000) for children suffering from malnutrition as a result of‘ drought in northern Mauritania, the EC Humanitarian Office (ECHO) reported this week. ECHO said the regions of Adrar, Inchiri and Tiris Ez Zemmour had been affected by a particularly severe drought for three years. It said adaptation and survival mechanisms the areas’ residents have traditionally used had been gradually eroded and that the food and health situation was now critical. In May, a joint mission by members of the Mauritanian government’s technical services and international organisations found that more than 35,000 people suffered from significant nutritional deficiencies and 30 percent of children in the affected areas had acute malnutrition. The new EU assistance will go to more than 2,500 severely malnourished children under the age of five and their mothers in five therapeutic nutritional centres and 31 supplementary feeding centres. The project will be implemented by the Italian Red Cross which, ECHO said, is well established in the regions worst it by drought.