Floods: UN appeals for food

Oct 21, 2007

THE United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it is quickly running out of food to feed over 300,000 people who have been displaced by the floods in northern and eastern Uganda.

THE United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it is quickly running out of food to feed over 300,000 people who have been displaced by the floods in northern and eastern Uganda, reports Chris Ocowun.   

“Before long, thousands of flood-hit families will have nothing to eat. WFP has been forced to bridge the food gap by drawing heavily on food stocks destined for thousands of internally displaced people and refugees,” the WFP executive director, Josette Sheeran, said in a press release.

He warned that hundreds of thousands would starve if the appeal is not answered quickly.

“Without new contributions, WFP food assistance supply line for 1.7m people in Uganda will break in December. Projects were already short of funds prior to the floods, and now stocks of special foods for malnourished children are exhausted. Beans will run out later this month,” Sheeran revealed.

On Friday, there was excitement and jubilation when a UN Antonov-12 plane dropped several sacks of food for the displaced people at Olilim camp in Lira district.

The plane dropped 26 tonnes of cereals and beans for 620 households. The beneficiaries included pregnant women, nursing mothers and the critically ill and malnourished.

Mothers, fathers and children abandoned their daily chores to collect the ‘manna’ falling from the sky. This was the first time in Uganda that the UN is airdropping food as part of a massive effort to reach tens of thousands of people in remote areas.

The food package included 117 metric tonnes of cereals, pulses, sugar and corn-soya blend that were airlifted from Gulu, enough to feed the 10,000 people in two camps for a month.

Some displaced people have not received food since July because of the torrential rains which have destroyed many bridges and entire roads.

“Resorting to food airdrops reflects the severity of the floods, which in some parts of Uganda are the worst in 35 years. There is simply no other way to get survival rations to isolated people,” said the WFP Uganda acting country director, Alix Loriston.

“While tens of thousands of displaced people in the north of the country are still unreachable as floodwaters have severed roads, WFP is using a combination of airdrops and helicopters to deliver food and non-food items.”

WFP is also using boats to deliver food and essential supplies in the east. So far, it has delivered food to 150,000 people out of the 300,000 affected by the floods in the east, he said.

Loriston said they urgently need $17m to buy food and $3.2m to operate trucks, boats and aircraft.

He stated that in total, WFP needs $60m to feed 1.7m people until March 2008. This would cater for the flood victims, returnees and refugees fleeing from the DR Congo.

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