Relief food requirements remain high

Over two million people were being provided with food each month as food relief requirements in the Great Lakes region remained high for a variety of reasons, the latest emergency report from WFP stated. The agency’s largest assistance programme in the region, the regional protracted relief and recovery operation, was currently assisting over one million people, half of them refugees but also including displaced and drought-affected people, vulnerable groups and malnourished persons, the report said. Assistance to drought-affected people in Burundi, which began in September 1999, was still continuing. “To date, approximately 15,000 tons of food have been distributed to a total of 1.4 million Burundians,” the report said. In Rwanda, meanwhile, close to 110,000 persons affected by drought in Kigali Rural were provided with WFP food during May. Drought conditions persisted in parts of the country and a joint drought assessment mission comprising FAO, WFP and government authorities has just been completed, the agency said. Events such as the recent outbreak of fighting in Kisangani, eastern DRC, also increased the need for food assistance, it added.