Upsurge in fighting hampers food delivery, warns WFP

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Thursday that an upsurge in fighting in recent weeks in parts of Burundi had prevented it from delivering food assistance to thousands of newly displaced people. "WFP is extremely concerned about the nutritional status of displaced Burundians, as well as the limited ability of the already poor and struggling communities hosting them to cope," Zlatan Milisic, WFP country director in Burundi, said. "These repeated displacements and continuing insecurity put the lives and livelihoods of everyone in the area at stake." WFP said continued insecurity forced it to cancel last week's planned emergency food aid distributions to 13,000 people who had recently fled their homes in Muhuta Commune, a rural area outside the country's capital, Bujumbura. WFP said the last time it had access to these people was on 19 February during a joint needs assessment it conducted with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Children's Fund, following news of the displacement. Since then, WFP said further reports had emerged of residents fleeing other rural communes in the wake of more clashes between the government and rebels of a faction of the Forces nationales de liberation. "Even a one-week delay for people who have no food and no way of getting food is a week too long," Milisic said. "Security permitting, food will be quickly distributed to the displaced people." Despite improved overall security in most of Burundi, WFP said it received regular reports of the displacement of thousands in western areas of the country, especially in Kanyosha, Nyabiraba, Kabezi and Muhuta Communes of Bujumbura Rural Province. Furthermore, targeted killings, rape of women, armed robbery and looting of households continued. "In many cases, when people flee the fighting they must leave their homes without taking any food with them," WFP said. "In their absence, their belongings - including clothes, kitchen utensils, and food stocks - are often plundered."