Member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) gathered in Istanbul Thursday to co-ordinate an emergency response to the devastating drought in Somalia. "In such a large-scale disaster, we need to join hands together and to act collectively so as to counter the spread of the calamity and to save as many lives as we possibly can," OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey told a meeting of the organisation's relief aid agencies.
Non-governmental organisations agreed at the meeting to let the OIC co-ordinate the humanitarian efforts of its 57 member countries. The OIC would start by distributing aid to some 40,000 people in the Afgooye corridor near Mogadishu under an agreement with the World Food Programme, said Ihsanoglu. More than 60,000 people were already benefiting from OIC aid.
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