The Government has pledged a further €1m in emergency food assistance to Somalia and neighbouring countries, bringing the total aid to €7m.
It has also said it will provide an airlift of emergency supplies from the Irish Aid stockpile in Dubai.
A Technical Team is to be deployed to the region from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The team will report back to Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore on how Ireland can best contribute to the relief effort in the Horn of Africa.
Over the coming days, the International Committee of the Red Cross will increase its emergency feeding centres in Somalia by 10 to 31, deploying 13 mobile emergency teams to reach malnourished children before their condition becomes critical.
Emergency meeting to discuss famine response
EU ministers, NGOs and international aid agencies are holding an emergency meeting in Rome tomorrow to formulate a response of the growing humanitarian crisis in Somalia.
The meeting has been called at the request of the French government which currently holds the presidency of the G20 group of nations.
Reports this weekend suggest that 800,000 Somalis have already made their way to Kenya and Ethiopia or have sought help in the vastly overcrowded Internal Displacement Camps in Mogadishu.
Tomorrow’s meeting is expected to focus on the logistics of getting aid into affected areas, which presents particular difficulties due to ongoing instability and infrastructure problems in the region.
Recent reports suggest that up to 10,000 people have already died from starvation and disease in the affected countries.
Somalia is the worst hit of the three countries. An estimated three million of its 10 million people are now described as being ‘displaced’.
