Trump pledges $121 towards feeding refugees made homeless by Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria

PRESIDENT Donald Trump has promised to pay out the sum of $639m to help feed people facing starvation across Africa including the victims of the recent Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.

According to the White House, the money will be used to feed people facing starvation because of drought and conflict in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Rob Jenkins, the acting head of the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at the US Agency for International Development (Usaid), of the funding, $121m would go to Nigeria, while $191m would go to Yemen, $199m to South Sudan and nearly $126m to Somalia.

Mr Jenkins said: “With this new assistance, the United States is providing additional emergency food and nutrition assistance, life-saving medical care, improved sanitation, emergency shelter and protection for those who have been affected by conflict. We’re in a dire situation right now but the situation in southern Ethiopia, fortunately, does not rise to the dire situation of the other four, however, the situation is deteriorating and might very well be catastrophic without additional interventions.”

According to Mr Jenkins, conflicts in all the four countries had made it difficult to reach some communities in need of food. He said that Usaid was also concerned about the situation in southern Ethiopia, adding that Washington had already provided some $252m this year to the country.

President Trump’s pledge came during a working session of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, Germany. David Beasley, the executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), confirmed the pledge on the edge of the summit.
 

Mr Beasley said the world is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two, describing the pledge as providing a godsend to the suffering millions and the global food agency fighting hunger worldwide. This new funding brings to over $1.8bn aid promised by the US for the 2017 fiscal year for the crises in the four countries, where the UN estimates more than 30m people need urgent food assistance.

According to Mr Beasley, the US funding was about a third of what the WFP estimated was required this year to deal with urgent food needs in the four countries as well as in other areas. He added that the WFP estimates that 109m people around the world will need food assistance this year, up from 80m last year, with 10 of the 13 worst-affected zones stemming from wars and man-made crises

President Trump’s announcement came after his administration proposed sharp cuts in funding for the US State Department and other humanitarian missions as part of his America First policy. Mr Beasley said the agency had worked hard with the White House and the US government to secure the funding but President Trump would insist that other countries contribute more as well.