MaximsNewsNetwork: 10 November 2009 - WFP - UNMIS: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) begins an airlift operation to provide food for over 150,000 people living in areas that cannot be accessed by road in Sudan's ten southern states. The region is plagued by tribal violence, high food prices and poor harvests induced by drought.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) began an operation to airlift food for over one hundred and fifty thousand people living in areas that cannot be accessed by road in Sudans ten southern states. The region is plagued by tribal violence, high food prices and poor harvests induced by drought.
The airdrops, which began last Thursday, will continue through January of next year and will deliver four thousand metric tons of food to the hardest hit southern Sudanese states of Jonglei, Upper Nile and Warrap.
SOUNDBITE (English) Michelle Iseminger, Head of Programme, World Food Programme, Southern Sudan:
The food and security situation in the country is just massively expanding because of the poor rainfall, the high food prices. People can not afford to buy food in the market and basically conflict which is displacing people and not making them able to do their agricultural production.
Many roads are in bad condition and cannot be used during the rainy season that stretches from April until December. Increased tribal fighting has also blocked road and river access to some areas of southern Sudan. Today 36 metric tons of food items were dropped from WFP aircraft to the Jonglei state town of Pochalla.
As she waited for the arrival of food aid, Pochalla resident Jai Gora Odor said that the whole community is suffering on account of food scarcity.
SOUNDBITE: (Anyuak) Jai Gora Odor, community member:
There is lack of food here you can even see it from the physical appearance of the people. We are only feeding on the branches of the trees and wild fruits.
To carry out the airdrops, WFP is using Ilyushin-76 planes that can carry up to 36 metric tons of food on each flight. Airlifts are a more expensive way to bring food than would be the case by road or river.
SOUNDBITE (English) Michelle Iseminger, Head of Programme, World Food Programme, South Sudan:
At this point because of the severity of the situation and because of the accessibility problem, we really dont have a choice except to get the food in by air.
WFP lost seven hundred and twenty-five metric tons of food in June this year when a convoy of barges laden with food aid was attacked on the Sobat River. The sorghum and other food supplies on the barges had been earmarked for the town of Akobo, which is host to large numbers of civilians displaced by tribal fighting that has afflicted many parts of southern Sudan this year.
WFP has sent out an appeal for another forty four million U.S. dollars in funding to deliver twenty two thousand metric tons of food to feed three hundred thousand people facing severe food shortages in southern Sudan. Half of the food will be delivered by airdrops and the rest by road and barge.
WFP has thus far received 14.5 million US dollars, 6 million U.S. dollars, from the UN Common Humanitarian Fund, 6 million U.S. dollars from the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund and 2.5 million U.S. dollars from the United States Agency for International Development.
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