The world has pledged $2 billion in aid for stricken areas in South Asia and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will probably visit Indonesia next week, a senior U.N. official said on Saturday. Jan Egeland, the undersecretary-general in charge of emergency relief, the overall donations increased to $2 billion from some $1.2 billion due mainly to a $500 million pledge from Japan, the highest single donation to date. About 40 governments and the World Bank have made pledges. "We are at the moment recording pledges of $2 billion for emergency phase and recovery phase," Egeland told his daily news conference. "It's the biggest outpouring of relief in such a short period of time." He said that was more than all the aid received by the United Nations in 2004 for such places as Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo combined, adding, "International compassion has never been like this." Annan has been invited to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday and U.N. officials say he will probably accept. The Indonesian islands of Aceh and Sumatra are among the worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck on Dec. 26. The secretary-general had planned to issue a relief appeal on Thursday but some officials said he may do it from Jakarta. The United Nations is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross and coordinating thousands of independent relief groups to get food, medicine, generators, and transport to the millions of afflicted people. He estimated deaths at 150,000 but said there were probably many more unrecorded fatalities in remote fishing villages.
