WFP distributes food to schools in the north

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has started food distribution to primary school children in the northern and central provinces of the Central African Republic (CAR), where most of the October 2002-March 2003 fighting took place, a WFP official told IRIN on Monday. WFP Representative in the CAR David Bulman, accompanied by the ministers of education, of youth and sports and of social affairs, Bevara Lalah, Leo Salam and Lea Doumta, launched the distribution on Friday in Bossangoa, 305 km north of the capital, Bangui. Bulman said four schools with 1,650 children received 12.5 mt of food, representing rations for 47 days. He said that the UN agency was preparing for the distribution to 11 other schools in Ouham Province. "We used this [Friday launch] as publicity for parents and school officials to get warehouses ready as soon as possible," he said. He added that the doors of most school warehouses had been stolen during the six-month rebellion. Bulman said that the rations, which would reach at least 100,000 children in the northern provinces of Ouham, Ouham Pende and Nana Gribizi and the central province of Kemo, comprised maize flour, beans, oil, salt, sugar and soya-corn blend flour. "Each child will be receiving pudding in the morning and a cooked meal at midday," he added. The food would be cooked by parents’ associations and be served in school canteens throughout the current school year and the next one due to begin in December. The WFP food distribution programme is aimed at assisting the local people in areas where the farming season was lost because of violence and at encouraging children to attend class. "The act of feeding children means that parents have less difficulty in feeding the rest of the family," Bulman told IRIN on 21 August. The WFP project is the second large-scale food distribution in the north since 15 March when Francois Bozize overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse. Soon after the coup, an estimated 1,800 mt of food was looted from WFP warehouses in Bangui, a move that prompted the agency to stop food deliveries until July. In early September, health centres and organisations caring for HIV patients in Bangui and the southern province of Lobaye received WFP food rations.