NAIROBI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Tuesday launched a funds drive to help victims affected by the bomb attack that took place on Saturday in Somalia capital, Mogadishu.
Kenya's foreign affairs minister Amina Mohamed said the funds drive seeks to raise resources towards emergency response and livelihood recovery.
"Today we launch Kenyans for Somalia and call upon Kenyans of goodwill to support our brothers and sisters in Somalia. The urgent needs include medical attention, psychological support as well as short and long term support to those rendered destitute," Mohamed said during the launch of the drive in Nairobi.
She said Kenya has already donated 11 tonnes of assorted medicine and two planes to airlift 31 people with injuries for treatment in the country. "Our hope is to raise enough funds and support the injured and their families," Mohamed said.
"We may not tell right now how much money is needed to support these families. We appreciate, however, the need to defray expenses for medical attention, psychological and social support as well as short-to-long term requirements of those rendered destitute," she said.
The humanitarian effort is coordinated by the Kenya Red Cross who has received a special appeal for assistance from its counterpart Somali Red Crescent.
The move comes as search and rescue operations are still ongoing at the site of the attack in the restive Mogadishu city and the number of casualties may rise thus necessitating wide scale support of all kinds.
The attack has so far left some 279 people dead and another 350 nursing different kinds of injuries, prompting urgent emergency response from humanitarian agencies operating in Somalia.
"The people of Somalia and specifically those directly affected by the attack are in dire need of all our support. A good neighbour will deny himself one or more things to support a neighbor in more need and as Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, we always stand together during such humanitarian crisis," Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abba Gullet said.
Meanwhile, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has condemned the Saturday's deadly attack in Mogadishu which has claimed innocent lives.
"The evil people who planned and executed this heinous crime do not understand, clearly, the pride, strength and determination of the people of Somalia to overcome tragedies and emerge even stronger and more determined," Kenyatta said in his condolence message to his counterpart in Somalia, President Mohammed Farmajo.
He said Kenya recognizes that the scale and cruelty of the abhorrent crime on Saturday was staged to strike fear and despondency in the people of Somalia, calculated to undermine the progress of the Federal Government in state building.
