US pledges 'significant' aid for East Africa famine

The U.S. already has pledged US$5 million Friday to help Somali refugees on top of a previously budgeted US$63 million. Reuben E. Brigety, who is responsible for State Department assistance to refugees and conflict victims in Africa, said Washington is now studying how much more it will give.

Tens of thousands of Somali refugees are flooding camps in Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food after several seasons without rain decimated livestock and killed crops in Somalia.

Little help can reach those in the worst-hit area because an al-Qaida-linked militant group had banned aid work, though it recently said it would lift that ban.

Over the last several days, Brigety has visited camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and talked with mothers and children who walked for days with little food or water.

Levels of malnutrition among refugees arriving at the camps are staggeringly high. The overall mortality rate at the camps in Ethiopia is seven people out of 10,000 per day, when a normal crisis rate is two per day, Brigety said.

The aid group Save The Children said Friday that it has started feeding malnourished refugee children in pre-registration sites at camps in southern Ethiopia. Some 2,000 refugees are crossing into Ethiopia every day, swelling the camps' populations.

Because of the overwhelming numbers, refugees are waiting days or weeks to get into the camps, Save the Children said, making the feeding programs outside a necessity.

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