(MENAFN- Emirates News Agency (WAM)) The new head of the United Nations relief arm has released a fresh tranche of crisis funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) in order to support life-saving relief work for thousands of Burundian refugees dispersed between Rwanda and Tanzania, the Organisation has announced.
Since early April, nearly 100,000 Burundians have fled across the borders, seeking safety in neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A cholera epidemic striking refugees gathered along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania has only added to the miseries of the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
"Children are arriving at borders sick and malnourished. Many are unaccompanied or have been separated from their families," Stephen O'Brien, the newly appointed head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a press release.
OCHA confirmed that the injection of CERF funds would deliver some $15 million to relief efforts targeting the refugees, with approximately $7.5 million destined for relief agencies in Tanzania and nearly $8 million aimed at supporting the scale-up of life-saving operations in Rwanda.
With the political situation in Burundi remaining tense and with continued violence reported, however, UN aid agencies fear that the number of refugees may double over the next six months.
According to a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) assessment, over 4,000 cases of cholera have so far been reported with the number of new cases falling to 100 a day from a peak of 915 on 18 May. The deaths have been in the port town of Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, in the nearby villages of Kagunga and Nyarugusu, and among people being transported by ferry from Kagunga to Kigoma.
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