Horn of Africa: UNICEF urges to airlines to cut costs of delivering aid.
2 August 2011 – As aid agencies continue to scale up their response to the dire humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations Children’s Fund ( UNICEF ) is appealing to the air transport sector to provide free and discounted cargo space to bring emergency food supplies into the region. “Commercial air transport costs as much as the value of the food,” Marixie Mercado, UNICEF’s spokesperson in Geneva, told a news conference there. British Airways, Lufthansa, UPS Virgin and Cargolux have already offered free or discounted cargo space, and UNICEF is appealing to other carriers to help transport food aid from Europe to the region to help children who will die without it. Drought in the Horn of Africa has ravaged large areas of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, leaving an estimated 12.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid. UN agencies and their partners are seeking $1.4 billion so they can scale up their response to the hunger crisis, which has already clai