Europe offers Somalia 35 million euros in aid

AFP

Europe offered 35 million euros on Tuesday to help millions of Somali people stricken by war, starvation and illness. The money was agreed by the European Union’s executive commission. It is aimed at some 3.2 million Somalis estimated to need emergency assistance. The funds will be channelled into a wide range of humanitarian aid projects.

Somalia was also one of six drought-prone countries in the Horn of Africa awarded a total of 20 million euros by the commission last month.

African Union leaders agreed on Tuesday to send thousands of extra troops to reinforce its military contingent battling insurgents in Somali.

The hard-line Shebab militia, whose leadership has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, controls the majority of the country.

President Sharif Sheik Ahmed’s Western-backed government is confined to just a few blocks in Mogadishu.