UN seeks urgent funds to tackle Kenya floods

Geneva, 09 Nov-(ANA)-The United Nations refugee agency is appealing for $2.8 million to provide essential supplies and respond to possible disease outbreaks among more than

300,000 refugees in two camps in Kenya threatened by flooding.

Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

told reporters in Geneva that the agency has already begun to make engineering improvements in the two camps – Kakuma in north-western Kenya and Dadaab in the east.

Located some 90 kilometres from the border with Somalia, Dadaab – the largest

refugee site in the world – is actually a complex of three camps that were built

to house 90,000 people but today are home to more than three times that number.

UNHCR began digging trenches and placing sandbags around hospitals, boreholes

and other strategic locations in both camps when the heavy rains began three

weeks ago.

The agency noted that if not for these and other measures, many

sections of the camp would have been inundated. (ANA)

FA/ANA/09 November 2009----