Islamic aid groups meet to help Somalia drought victims

Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) gathered in Istanbul Thursday to coordinate an emergency response to the devastating drought in Somalia. "In such a large-scale disaster, we need to join hands together and to act collectively so as to counter the spread of the calamity and to save as many lives as we possibly can," OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey told a meeting of the organisation's relief aid agencies. "For this reason, we call for the establishment of a large coalition under the banner of the OIC to address the emergency situation in Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general," he added. Ihsanoglu also called on warring Somali factions "to immediately stop all hostilities during the holy month of Ramadan and to allow access to all humanitarian actors without distinction whatsoever so as to enable them to freely reach out to all the needy populations." The OIC has a humanitarian aid office in the Somali capital Mogadishu and is one of the rare bodies allowed to operate in Somalia by Islamist rebels there. The United Nations last week officially declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia, as the world slowly mobilised to help 12 million people battling hunger in the region's worst drought in 60 years. Somalia, which has been affected by almost uninterrupted conflict for 20 years and become a byword for "failed state", is the worst affected nation but parts of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti are also hit.