Diplomat calls Iran biggest donor to Somalia

A senior Somali diplomat lauded Iran for its humanitarian aids to the draught-stricken people of his country, and said Iran has turned into the main center of fundraising and aid collection for the Somalis. "Iran is in the center of aid collection from other countries for the crisis in Somalia," Mogadishu's Charge D'Affaires to Tehran Saeed Khalif Kadif Mousa told FNA on Tuesday. He pointed to the dispatching of 560 cargoes of humanitarian aids from Iran to Somalia, and said Iran is also due to send a 5000-ton cargo of aids to his country via sea. Also, Head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society's Relief and Rescue Organization announced on Wednesday that Iran had dispatched its 14th cargo of humanitarian aids to Somalia. "The cargo contains 25 tons of aids, including beans, powder milk and flour, which will be sent to the Somali people who are fighting drought and famine," he continued. The IRCS official further pointed out that Iran will continue sending medical teams alongside its aid cargos to Somalia as long as the African nation is entangled with famine. According to the World Food Program, drought and famine have affected more than 11.8 million people in the Horn of Africa and created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia meet. Somalia has been the hardest-hit country by what is being described as the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years. The United Nations has warned that more than thirteen children out of every 10,000 aged less than five die in the Somalia famine zone every day.