Food aid reaches Makeni

Relief agencies have begun distributing food to thousands of people in the rebel-controlled town of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Monday. Wagdi Othman, a spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Abidjan, told IRIN relief agencies sent a 65-truck convoy carrying 1,200 mt of food to the town on Saturday. "Distributions started on Sunday to a registered caseload of 97,000 in the Makeni area," he said. A spokesman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Freetown told IRIN the delivery of food to Makeni was a "collaborative effort" involving WFP, World Vision International, Catholic Relief Services and CARE. "This food distribution will help to alleviate the poor nutritional situation in Makeni but future interventions will depend on security," the OCHA official said. Food aid deliveries to Makeni had been suspended since last December and previous efforts to restart them were disrupted by rebel kidnappings near the road linking Freetown to the northern town. Malnourished children continue to receive support in Makeni through Action Contre la Faim (ACF)'s specialised feeding programmes. An ACF representative in Freetown told IRIN that about 2,000 "moderately malnourished children" were enrolled on its wet feeding programme and some 400 "severely malnourished children" participated in its therapeutic feeding programme. In a related development, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) distributed over 300 mt of lentils, bulgur wheat and cooking oil to some 20,000 people in Lunsar in mid-August, according to the CRS Sierra Leone Emergency Update of 1 September. The Lunsar food aid distribution was the first by any humanitarian agency in rebel-held territory since December 1998, according to CRS. Food aid deliveries to Lunsar were hampered by the destruction by rebels of a bridge along the route, which required the food to be transported manually across the stream that the bridge spanned. Lunsar, about 75 miles northeast of Freetown, is just over half way along the road from the capital to Makeni.