UN approves emergency loan of $22 million for Somalia

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in Nairobi on March 8, 2017. PHOTO | TONY KARUMBA | AFP

What you need to know:

  • The Central Emergency Response Fund is releasing the funds to Fao in the hope it will help stave off catastrophe in the civil-war wracked country, just five years after the last famine.

  • Somalia declared a national disaster last month as the number of people going hungry hit three million.

The United Nations has approved an emergency loan of $22 million in a bid to prevent another famine in drought and crisis-hit Somalia, its food agency the Food and Agriculture Organization (Fao) said on Tuesday.

The Central Emergency Response Fund is releasing the funds to Fao in the hope it will help stave off catastrophe in the civil-war wracked country, just five years after the last famine.

Somalia declared a national disaster last month as the number of people going hungry hit three million.