World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director, Richard Ragan (2nd R), explains a point to journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday, shortly after the government of Germany had announced a contribution of over Sh 39 billion to support refugees in East Africa. From (L) are: German Development Bank (KfW) Country Director Helmut Schon; Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of International Cooperation Director, Ambassador Celestine Mushi; German Ambassador to Tanzania Egon Kochanke, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Country Representative, Joyce Mends-Cole. (Photo: John Badi)/

German government has announced a release of  €16.5m (Sh39.1bn) worth relief support on refugees in the East African region as a part of the contribution to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Tanzania, Egon Kochanke told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday that €14m (sh33.1bn) portion of the funds would be channeled through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to provide food assistance to new arrivals from the war-torn Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Tanzania.
He said the remaining €2.5m (Sh5.9 bn) would go to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) to assist Burundian refugees in DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania.
“Tanzania has proved itself to be a safe-haven for a large number of Burundian refugees,” he said during the event to disclose the relief, commending the government of Tanzania for hosting the unprecedented number of refugees from the neighbouring countries.
“We believe that our contribution will help to boost Tanzania’s morale in humanitarian course,” he said.
Tanzania is a host to over 200,000 refugees including more than 116,000 who fled  Burundi since April following the outbreak of political unrest in that country and  64,000 refugees from the neighbouring DRC.
Tanzania has this year re-opened three former refugee camps in North-Western part of the country to accommodate the large influx of Burundian refugees.
“We appreciate the generous contribution from the German government and we believe it will help us in filling in large relief gaps,”  said UNHCR Representative in Tanzania, Joyce Mends-Cole, adding; “In addition to assisting the refugees themselves, this generous contribution will also help boost the local economy.”
The contribution to WFP is channeled from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the German Development Bank Kreditanstalt fürWiederaufbau (KfW).
Dr Helmut Schön, Director of KfW in Dar es Salaam said the German contribution to WFP would provide over 180,000 refugees with a basic food basket of maize, beans, vegetable oil, salt and corn soya blended flour for five months.
It will also provide supplementary food to prevent malnutrition for 26,000 children under five, as well as 9,900 pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Ambassador Celestine Mushy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation called for more supports from international communities to relieve Tanzania from bearing regular burden of refugee influx.
He said serving refugees was a cross cutting issue, given their desperate condition, saying humanitarian aid from Germany would speed up preparations for the opening the newly introduced Nduta and Mtendeli  camps in North-QWestern Tanzania.
He cited lack of running water as one of the major hindrances for the opening of the overcrowded Nyarugusu camp,formaerly designed to accommodate only 50,000n refugees.
“Tanzania is very concerned with problems facing its neighbours. We are the only country in Africa to have issued resident permits to refugees,”  he said.
He said the presence of over 212, 000 refugees in the country was calling for concern, citing fears that the situation may worsen given the average of  250  refugees entering the country on daily basis.
WFP Country Representative Richard Ragan supported Ambassador Mushy’s motion, saying that more aid at a monthly rate of  €2.5m to €3m from various stakeholders would be needed to serve refugees in Kigoma to serve for, among others, infrastructure, meals and logistics costs