WFP facing major pipeline break

The World Food Progamme is facing a gap in donor funding for food supplies to thousands of needy people in the lawless west of Cote d'Ivoire where there are increasing reports of food insecurity and malnutrition. "If we do not get US $3 million now to cater for the food programme then we will be forced to cut down our supplies - already we have started doing so and this is grossly affecting people who desperately need food assistance," WFP's regional coordinator Gemmo Lodesani told IRIN on Monday. He said the situation was "very serious" and this break in the food pipeline was already affecting WFP's activities in Cote d'Ivoire, the north of which has been occupied by rebel forces since the outbreak of a civil war in September last year. Lodesani said rations distributed to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the towns of Tabou and Guiglo had already been reduced. In a situation report on Friday, WFP said hundreds of people have been emerging from the bush in western Cote d'Ivoire since French and West African peacekeeping troops were sent into the area at the end of May to restore order. They were now returning to their homes, but most of the children and women showed signs of malnutrition, having spent days without proper meals and having been unable to grow any food. The partitioning of Cote d'Ivoire between government forces in the south and rebel forces in the north had also cut supply lines for medical drugs and materials, it noted. WFP said a few humanitarian organisations were attempting to fill the vacuum, however, important health programmes were no longer being implemented. In most of the health centres medical staff were absent and hospitals and clinics had been looted. There was lack of clean water and malaria, measles and a variety of skin diseases linked to vital food deficiencies, had also become a serious problem. A joint assessment by WFP and other relief agencies in the towns of Blolequin and Toulepleu found high levels of malnutrition and water, health and sanitation problems. In Zouan Hounien, a study by MSF-Holland found a 15 percent rate of severe malnutrition a 20 percent rate of moderate malnutrition.