WFP "ready to roll"

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday that it was still waiting for clearance to deliver badly needed supplies to previously inaccessible areas, AFP reported. "We are ready to roll. We've prepared a food convoy but we're still in a holding pattern," Paul Ares, regional manager for WFP in Abidjan, told AFP. For the last four months, food deliveries have been severely constrained by the closure of the main road linking the capital to the southern towns of Bo and Kenema, according to a WFP press release. Last month, food stocks completely ran out in Kenema, some 250 km southeast of Freetown. "As a result, 51,000 displaced people in the town and nearby Blama received a two-week food ration in April instead of the usual one- month ration," Ares said. In Bo, some 80 km west of Kenema, where WFP is feeding some 10,000 displaced people, food stocks will be exhausted by the end of the month, the press release said.