The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, has commended the UAE's support for Somali refugees in Yemen and Yemeni students as part of the UAE #Year of Giving initiative.

Toby Harward, Director of the UNHCR Office in the UAE, expressed the international organisation's appreciation of the noble initiatives launched by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation, MBRF, for Somali refugees and Yemeni students as part of the country's response to the crisis faced by Somali refugees, saying that the foundation's donation of books for the refugees and students will help widen their horizons and incentivise them to develop their readership skills.

He added that the Year of Giving's initiatives have become an integral part of the stance adopted by the UAE toward all humanitarian issues which the country is consistently addressing.

The books donated by the MBRF have been placed in two primary schools at a Somali refugee camp in Yemen and a female secondary school in the Governorate of Aden for the benefit of 4,500 students in the first such initiative for Somali refugees in Yemen.

Jamal bin Huwaireb, CEO of MBRF, said the initiative coincides with the programmes developed by the foundation as part of the #Year of Giving and is in line with the directives of the UAE government to support reading and knowledge at local, regional and international levels.