Iran sends 5th medical team to Somalia

Iran's Red Crescent Society (IRCS) will send a 5th medical team to Somalia today to help the famine-stricken people of the African country, senior Iranian Red Crescent officials announced on Monday.Head of the IRCS Relief and Rescue Organization Mahmoud Mozaffar said the 10-member team includes volunteer medics and physicians from Iran's Markazi (Central) province and will leave Tehran for Mogadishu later today. The team will stay there for 17 days. IRCS has recently inaugurated a central clinic in Mogadishu to help the drought and famine-stricken people of the country. It had earlier erected 6 medical camps in Somalia. The Islamic Republic of Iran was among the first countries which rushed to the aid of the Somali people and it has dispatched over 14 aid cargos to the African nation thus far. On Wednesday, Iran shipped its largest cargo of humanitarian aids weighing about 5000 tons to Somalia. The cargo contains medicine, rice, flour, cereal, sugar, and some other goods. A number of Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, have so far visited Somalia to inspect the famine-hit areas and oversee the process of delivering aid to the country. According to the World Food Program, drought and famine have affected more than 11.8 million people in the Horn of Africa and created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia meet. Somalia has been the hardest-hit country by what is being described as the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years. The United Nations has warned that more than thirteen children out of every 10,000 aged less than five die in the Somalia famine zone every day.