UN Humanitarian Envoy Starts Trip to Eritrea And Ethiopia

Aug 22, 2005 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa today started a two-day fact-finding visit to Eritrea, which has been hit by five years of drought, the lingering effects of its two-year border war with Ethiopia and the challenges of resettling thousands of refugees.

The envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, will met with senior Government officials, representatives of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the capital, Asmara, to exchange views on how best to supply the country’s humanitarian needs for the rest of 2005 and in 2006.

In addition, they will review plans for the return and re-settlement of internally displaced people (IDPs) and rural expellees living in camps, as well as the reintegration of about 120,000 returnees from Sudan, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

This is the Special Envoy’s fifth visit to Eritrea since his appointment in June 2003.

If the 2005 main rainy season, or kremti, continues to perform well, food production for the current season will improve, based on having increased the planted area by nearly 25 per cent and increased agricultural inputs, OCHA said.

Mr. Ahtisaari has been highlighting the humanitarian and recovery needs of Eritrea to donors to keep the humanitarian plight of Eritreans high on their agenda, it said.

Donors have contributed 81 per cent of the $156.2 million the Eritrea Consolidated Appeal 2005 requested, OCHA said. Some important funding gaps exist in such key sectors as seed distribution, water supply, effective supplementary and therapeutic feeding and provision of basic health services.

The National Nutritional Surveillance System reports indicate that malnutrition rates remain unacceptably high in many parts of the country. In the Northern and Southern Red Sea regions children under 5 years have global acute malnutrition (GAM) rates of 15.2 per cent and 14.4 per cent. Low body mass index (BMI) measurements in adult women were 49.8 per cent and 43.4 per cent respectively.

This has been worsened by a continuing shortfall of 16,000 tons of blended supplementary food in Eritrea.

Mr. Ahtisaari and his entourage will leave Asmara for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on a similar mission on Thursday.