16 June 2001
The European Commission announced on Tuesday a 3.7 million-euro (US $ 3.2 million) grant to buy relief items - mainly food - for some 155,000 Western Sahara refugees in Tindouf, southwestern Algeria.
This will enable the European Union's humanitarian aid office, ECHO, and Italian partners Medico International and the Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli to guarantee food for the next three months. Their food supply has been almost empty since February, ECHO said. The European aid followed a funding appeal by UNHCR and WFP on 8 June.
The UN agencies called for $1.2 million per month for the refugees who have been in Tindouf since 1976 because of the dispute between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front over Western Sahara's right to independence.
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