U.N. asks for $2.26 billion in emergency relief aid

ALSO Annan appeals for emergency funding to revamp peacekeeping

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- U.N. relief agencies appealed on Tuesday for $2.26 billion to aid 35 million victims of floods, drought, disease and wars around the world from Angola to Afghanistan.

Under the rubric of "Women and War," the agencies dealing with refugees, children, food, population, health, education and development want governments in 2001 to pay special attention to women and children, who represent about 80 percent of the 40 million uprooted people in the world.

"We asked the agencies to understand women need different kinds of protection," said Carolyn McAskie, the deputy director of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"A woman alone in a war is open game," she said.

This year's annual interagency appeal to governments is for 19 hardship areas -- most of them in Africa, including Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Tajikistan, North Korea, refugees from Chechnya and Indonesia's troubled Maluku island are also on the list.

The new appeal total of $2.26 billion is lower than the $2.3 billion sought for the year 2000, which so far has resulted in a 55.6 percent response, U.N. officials said. Most of the funds came from the United States, Japan and Europe.

Several Balkan nations, ravaged in recent years by wars that have caused floods of refugees, are earmarked to receive $429 million.

Another large appeal, $386 million, is for North Korea, which faces its seventh consecutive year of food shortages, following floods and then drought. Most of the supplies for Pyongyang are funneled through the Rome-based U.N. World Food program.

The U.N. has earmarked $229 million for Afghanistan, where two decades of warfare and a recent drought have devastated the country, swamping neighboring nations with distraught refugees.

Pakistan U.N. Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad told the General Assembly on Monday his country was host to 2.6 million Afghan refugees and needed some of the emergency relief aid.

He said the burden of caring for Afghanistan's victims had shifted from the international community to Pakistan, which has recently closed its borders to curtail the stream of people.

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