EU humanitairan aid to drought victims in Central America

Responding to the prolonged drought in Central America, the Commission has allocated €2.3 million via ECHO, the Humanitarian Aid Office, under the responsibility of Commissioner Poul Nielson, to provide food aid for the most vulnerable sections of the population. This drought is the latest in a series of natural disasters, after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and the earthquakes that repeatedly hit El Salvador at the beginning of 2001, and comes on top of a particularly difficult economic climate.

The drought has so far lasted two years and has affected 1.5 million people in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. About half that number needs food aid. The loss of farm output has been considerable. Lack of food security since September 2001 has affected the most isolated and the most vulnerable (women, children and the old) particularly badly.

ECHO is seeking to provide for the inhabitants' growing needs, backing up the emergency food aid from UN Specialized Agencies and other ongoing European Commission food-security programmes. ECHO's humanitarian aid will target a group of families totaling about 70 000 individuals in the poorest and remotest areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. The aid operations will be spread over nine months, and will be entrusted to ECHO's partners in the region. Acción contra el Hambre (E), Solidaridad Internacional (E), Movimiento por la Paz, el Desarme y la Libertad (E), Movimondo (I), Oxfam (GB) and ACSUR Las Segovias (E) will deal with nutrition, health and sanitation, food aid and farming inputs.

Since Hurricane Mitch's devastation of Central America in 1998, the Commission has allocated €39.14 million for humanitarian needs and for prevention of natural disasters in the region.

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