Iran’s second humanitarian aid shipment has reached the Somali capital via air amid the famine-stricken Horn of African nation’s dire need for relief supplies

Iran's second humanitarian aid shipment has reached the Somali capital via air amid the famine-stricken Horn of African nation's dire need for relief supplies.

Saeed Matani, an official with Iran's Red Crescent Society (IRCS), said late Thursday that an Iranian plane carrying 40 tons of food and medicine landed in Mogadishu and that the aid shipment has been handed over to Somali authorities, IRIB reported.

He noted that 'a total of 200 tons' of Iran-provided relief supplies have been sent to Somalia so far and that another 160-ton aid cargo would be dispatched to the country in the near future.

The IRCS's first such shipment reached Somalia on March 21.

The UN has declared famine in five areas in southern Somalia, warning that, without urgent intervention, the food crisis could engulf the entire southern areas.

More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died of hunger over the past three months in southern Somalia, Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development, said last week.

According to UN reports, about 3.7 million people in Somalia are on the brink of starvation and millions more in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have been affected by the worst drought to hit the region in 60 years.

More than 1.5 million Somalis have been internally displaced by a tug-of-war among the armed groups there. The country has been without an effective central government since the 1991 overthrow of its former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.