BBC News | AFRICA | UN warns of new Horn famine

As in the mid-1980s, Ethiopia is most at risk, but six other countries in the region have also lost food stocks to the drought, fighting and continued instability from refugee flows.

"We are facing the real prospect in two months from now of another catastrophe which can be averted with the right kind of donor assistance," Ms McAskie said.

The United Nations estimates that it will cost $205m to bring the needed 371,000 metric tons of food and other assistance to the 12.4 million people at risk of famine in the seven most-affected countries.

UN envoy

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says some eight million people face starvation, adding that the 500,000 tonnes of food aid promised to his country by the United States would not be enough to avert the threat of famine.

Only about half of an existing UN inter-agency appeal for Ethiopia of $190m for the year 2000 has been met so far.

There has been no response so far to an appeal for $43m for Eritrea.

The UN has appointed a special envoy to the region. She is Catherine Bertini, the head of the organisation's international food agency, the World Food Programme.

She will travel to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya in mid-April to assess for herself what kind of assistance is required.

The UN says that while drought is the primary cause of the food crisis, conflict and insecurity have exacerbated the humanitarian situation in the region.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have been fighting a border war for nearly two years, and prolonged mediation efforts have achieved few concrete results.


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