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UN begins humanitarian airlift to Somalia

09 August 2011 20:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A plane carrying humanitarian aid supplies had landed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, the Geneva-based United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced on Tuesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The emergency airlift, which delivered 31 metric tons of emergency supplies to Mogadishu on Monday, is the first UNHCR airlift to Somalia in more than five year.

According to UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic, the second plane was scheduled for Thursday and the third one would bring in high-energy biscuits early next week.

UNHCR planned to assist some 180,000 people in Mogadishu and South Central Somalia by the end of the month.

However, the UN Refugee Agency said, volatile security situation in that part of Somalia continued to hamper the organization’s capacity to deliver the much-needed aid.