The Libyan Government has donated 200 tonnes of relief food to Kenyans affected by famine and drought. While flagging of the relief food worth Sh14 million, at the Libyan embassy in Nairobi yesterday, food donated by the President Gaddafi Projects, Mr Hisham Ali Sharriff, the Libyan Ambassador said immediate interventions would avert the suffering of millions of Kenyans.
"We are here to demonstrate the growing determination of African people to take care of one another," Hisham said.
The envoy said the food would be distributed through 10 community organisations targeting the most affected areas of Eastern, Central and North Eastern provinces. He said the donation was enabled through Gaddafi Project for Youth, Children and Women in Africa Foundation. Food for donation "Rice, wheat, flour, maize and cooking oil is what we are rolling out now, but we hope the drought will end soon," Hisham said. He promised that through the foundation, the Libyan Government would support education and projects that support youth, children and women to make them self-reliant. Hisham appealed to the Kenya Government to enable them acquire land to set up schools, medical facilities, drill boreholes and other projects the embassy plans to embark on. He also stressed the need to strengthen bilateral relations between Kenya and Libya.
While that was happening, The Kenya Meat Commission has started slaughtering animals from drought-hit regions to save farmers from incurring losses on livestock deaths. The exercise, which started on Monday, is a multi-million-shilling campaign launched by the government through the emergency drought mitigation project. At least 32,900 cattle from drought-hit regions in the country will be slaughtered in the next three months. So far 800 cattle have been slaughtered for meat. KMC was paying the farmers Sh100 for every kilogramme that their animal weigh.
