ReliefWeb

Highlights:

• UNHCR and partners continue to scale up the response to the needs of thousands of Somali refugees who have sought refuge in the Dollo Ado area of South-eastern Ethiopia which borders southern Bakool, one of the two regions in Somalia that has been declared to be in famine.

• The total number of Somali refugees in the Dollo Ado area stands at 114,646 as of 24 July 2011. More than 74,000 of them have arrived this year and over 18,000 in July alone, mainly from the Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions.

• The arrival rate drops to several hundred refugees each day from a high of 2,000 people a day nearly three weeks ago. Refugees relate this to recent news that aid may be distributed within Somalia rather than an improvement in the situation. The Ethiopian Government has kept its borders open.

• The overall nutrition situation in the Dollo Ado camps remains a concern with malnutrition levels among new arrivals still high. One in three children under five arriving from Somalia is severely malnourished. Health care and nutritional programmes are being up scaled in a bid to boost health status of children and other vulnerable groups of refugees.

• Registration capacity has more than doubled and waiting time for registration at the transit centre is significantly reduced. Congestion continues at the transit centre as registered refugees now wait for relocation to the new Hilaweyn camp.

• Urgent construction work continues to ready the fourth camp – Hilaweyn - for the transfer of some 13,000 refugees already in the reception and transit centres in Dollo Ado and for the continuing arrival of new refugees.