Europe offered 35 million euros (45 million dollars) on Tuesday to help millions of Somali people trapped in a desperate cycle of war, starvation and illness.
The money, agreed by the European Union's executive commission, is aimed at some 3.2 million Somalis estimated to need emergency assistance and will be channeled into a wide range of humanitarian aid projects.
"Somalia people are the first victims of the deadly combination of continuous fighting and adverse climatic conditions," said Kristalina Georgieva, humanitarian aid commissioner.
"Many Somali die in silence for lack of food, medical and sanitary care. We cannot let them down."
Somalia was also one of six drought-prone countries in the Horn of Africa awarded a total of 20 million euros by the commission last month.
African Union leaders agreed on Tuesday to send thousands of extra troops to reinforce its military contingent battling insurgents in Somalia.
The hardline Shebab militia, whose leadership has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, controls the vast majority of the country, with President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's Western-backed government confined to a few blocks in Mogadishu.
Source: AFP.
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