“U.N. refugee agency chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that relief groups should increase aid to war-battered and drought-hit Somalis to reduce the exodus to neighboring countries,” Agence France-Presse reports. “‘Our objective is to create conditions for Somalis to be able to live in Somalia and for Somali refugees, when they have the opportunity, to go back home safely,’ Guterres added,” the news agency notes. “Tens of thousands of Somalis have in recent months fled to camps in Ethiopia and Kenya due to the drought, the Horn of Africa’s worst in decades,” AFP writes (8/30).

According to AlertNet, the World Bank “will provide $407 million to help Kenya respond to a drought that has left millions in the country hungry, it announced on Tuesday.” The news service reports that the money “will be used to supplement existing projects in agriculture, health and water and sanitation and to scale up medium-term to long-term interventions in energy and water resources management” (Migiro, 8/30).