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Wash
ington has given $20-million for health and education in
Djibouti, a keystone in the US-led campaign against Osama bin
Laden's al-Qaeda network, the foreign ministry said here
yesterday.
Twelve-million dollars will go to expanding primary health care and
eight million to improving basic education, a statement said.
Andrew Natsios, the visiting director of the US Agency for
International Development (Usaid), which is providing the funds,
was set yesterday to meet Djibouti's Foreign Minister Ismael Omar
Guelleh.
Usaid has also opened an office in Djibouti.
The US two weeks ago renewed a three-month-old terrorism alert for
Djibouti, advising US citizens to reconsider any plans to travel to
the tiny Horn of Africa nation.
The renewal was issued by the State Department just ten days after
the US embassy in Djibouti alerted Americans to a specific threat
to churches and other houses of worship used by the expatriate
community here.
Djibouti has an important strategic position at the southern end of
the Red Sea and across from the Arabian peninsula in one of the
world's most unstable regions.
The former French colony is home to France's biggest overseas
military base, with 2 800 soldiers, and is now also a temporary
base for some 1 500 US soldiers.
Over the summer months Djibouti cracked down on tens of thousands
of illegal immigrants, mainly from neighbouring Somalia and
Ethiopia, expelling them for "security reasons".
A high-ranking government official, speaking anonymously, said the
expulsions were carried out under pressure from the US-led
"anti-terrorist" coalition. – Sapa-AFP.
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