€166m EU aid package for 10 African countries

THE European Union announced a €166 million aid package for 10 African countries yesterday, saying the continent’s poorest nations must be remembered on the first anniversary of the tsunami in Asia.

“Today we remember the victims of the tsunami in south east Asia. But millions of vulnerable people in Africa are exposed to natural disasters like droughts, floods and insect infestations as well as armed conflicts,” EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.

“These are silent tsunamis. Many of these catastrophes do not hit the headlines in the Western media but they still lead to great suffering,” he said.

The aid, which will be made available mainly in 2006 by the executive European Commission, will go to Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad, Tanzania, Uganda, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar and Comoros.

Sudan will receive €48m to help the victims of fighting and violence in the Darfur province, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced over two million, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, which is still struggling with bands of gunmen after a five-year war officially ended in 2003, will get €38m to improve health care for women and children and to help in the settlement of refugees.

Burundi is to receive €17m, Liberia €16.4m, Uganda €15m, Chad €13.5m and Tanzania €11.5m.

The EU, already the world’s largest aid donor, agreed this year to boost aid spending to 0.51% of gross national income (GNI) by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015.