UN appeals for another $1.3bn to save Somalia

The United Nations warned today that the famine in East Africa is yet to peak and hundreds of thousands of people face starvation and death without a huge global response.

UN deputy emergency relief coordinator Catherine Bragg appealed to the international community for $1.3 billion needed urgently to save lives.

"Every day counts," she told the UN Security Council. "We believe that tens of thousands have already died. Hundreds of thousands face imminent starvation and death. We can act to prevent further loss of life and ensure the survival of those who are on the brink of death."

Ms Bragg's office said the famine was expected to spread to all regions of south Somalia in four to six weeks unless further aid can be delivered.

The global body had requested $2.4 billion from donor countries for the relief effort but says it has so far received $1.1 billion. Ms Bragg said 3.7 million Somalis "are in crisis," and 3.2 million need "immediate life-saving assistance" - including 1.25 million children.

Her appeal came as a UN food agency warned that the number of people fleeing famine-hit areas of Somalia is likely to rise dramatically and could overwhelm international aid efforts in the Horn of Africa.

The long-running drought has been exacerbated by the refusal of controlling Islamist extremists al-Shabab to allow many humanitarian organisations to deliver aid in areas it controls.

In the past two months some 220,000 people have fled toward the Somali capital of Mogadishu, from which al-Shabab insurgents have withdrawn, and across the borders to Kenya and Ethiopia, where refugee camps are straining under the pressure of new arrivals. The UN estimates almost one million people are displaced elsewhere in Somalia.