WFP launches major humanitarian push

The World Food Programme (WFP) is accelerating its efforts to move urgently needed food aid into northern Iraq through Turkey. At present, the Turkish corridor is the agency's only operating route for food aid into Iraq. "This is a major new push for us," Heather Hill, a WFP spokeswoman, told IRIN on Tuesday in the Turkish capital, Ankara. "We are able to do this because we now have sufficient quantities of locally procured food," she added, emphasising that their goal was to move an average of 2,000 mt of food into Iraq each day. "This week, WFP has allocated 22,000 mt to be moved into northern Iraq," she said. On Monday, 146 trucks were loaded up with 3,147 mt of wheat flour and red lentils at the agency's warehouse facility in the eastern city of Gaziantep, 550 km west of the Iraqi border, and three other supply locations. "This is an increase of nearly 200 percent," Hill said, noting that since it sent in its first aid convoy on 29 March, recent deliveries averaged between 20 and 50 trucks. "Now it's going to be over 100 a day." Locally purchased wheat flour, red lentils, chickpeas and vegetable oil will be loaded on to trucks at seven individual supply stations spread along the route through southeastern Anatolia. As of Monday, since the start of the conflict on 20 March, some 217 trucks have successfully transported a total of 4,260 mt through the Turkish border crossing at Habur, the only one of its kind along the two countries' shared 331-km frontier. On Sunday, the first delivery by the agency arrived in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah. A total of 384 mt was distributed to 41,000 people - their first ration since March, with a second convoy carrying an additional 684 mt of wheat four arriving on Monday, followed by 43 mt of dried milk from the northern city of Dahuk. The milk will bolster supplies for the agency's nutrition programme in the north. Funded under the Oil-for-Food Programme, this targets vulnerable populations for whom general food rations are not enough, including supplementary feeding, school feeding and household food security/income generation activities. While Turkey is the only fully operational corridor open at the moment, WFP will open additional humanitarian corridors into Iraq from neighbouring countries, including Jordan and Iran, pending security clearance. The agency aims to deliver as much as 1.6 million mt of food aid in six months. Meanwhile, truck-to-truck loading of some 1,300 mt of wheat flour, arriving last week in Jordan from Syria, began on Sunday, to be dispatched this week. WFP had already purchased 3,720 mt of lentils and 300 mt of vegetable oil in Syria for the Iraq emergency. These items had been pre-positioned in Syria for the Iraq emergency. "Procuring food locally allows WFP the necessary flexibility to get food assistance into the country more effectively and efficiently," Hill said.