Britain says 400,000 Somali children at risk of death

MOGADISHU, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of children could starve to death in Somalia if the international community did not ramp up its response to the famine there.

Britain has already pledged more than 80 million pounds ($130 million) to help tackle what aid agencies are calling the worst drought in decades to hit Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. The British government is expected to announce additional funding specifically to deal with the unravelling humanitarian crisis later on Wednesday, a diplomatic source said.

"We call today on other countries to put their shoulders to the wheel and ensure this dreadful famine ... does not claim up to 400,000 children," Andrew Mitchell, Britain's International Development Secretary, told a news conference in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Japan has also pledged about $600,000 worth of aid to the U.N. refugee agency to help famine victims at the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, home to 440,000 Somali refugees. Mitchell's visit to Somalia, which is grappling to quash an Islamist rebellion that has hampered the delivery of food aid across swathes of its southern and central regions, was the first by a senior British minister since 1992.

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