Returning refugees will starve unless donors provide more food - WFP

Refugees returning to Liberia later this year under the auspices of a UN repatriation programme will face starvation unless donors urgently provide more money to feed them, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. Justin Bagirishya, the head of WFP in Liberia, said chronic shortages in the food supply pipeline had forced him to make a further cut this month in the rations handed out to nearly 740,000 people who already receive food aid. These existing beneficiaries would receive just 1,300 calories of the recommended 2,100 calorie daily food ration in September, 38 percent less than usual, he told IRIN in an interview at the weekend. "As we expect more Liberian refugees to come home in October, and as there are increasing demands for food aid by internally displaced persons, other vulnerable people as well as ex-combatants, WFP will face a critical break in the food pipeline next month if the required funds are not available", Bagirishya said. "If funding is not made available for food aid by October, I am afraid that people will have to starve. That is why we are contacting major donors to prevent mass starvation," he added. Bagirishya said an US$8 million donation announced by the European Union on Friday would help, but he still had a $6.6 million gap to cover until the end of the year. This was needed to buy and rapidly import 10, 461 tonnes of cereals, pulses, corn-soya blend, vegetable oil and salt, he added. WFP's existing caseload consists mainly of 300,000 internally displaced people living in camps around the outskirts of Monrovia, more than 70,000 people who have registered for disarmament as former combatants, and vulnerable groups such as malnourished children, the sick and the elderly. But the caseload will increase sharply from 1 October when the UN refugee agency UNHCR begins the repatriation of Liberian refugees from neighbouring countries and the assisted return of displaced people to their villages. WFP is supposed to provide food packages to each family to assist their resettlement. Earlier this month, UNHCR said it planned to repatriate 50,000 of the estimated 350,000 Liberians who sought refugee in other West African countries during Liberia's 14-year civil war by the end of this year. UNHCR said it also planned to resettle 100,000 internally displaced people in their villages, now that UN peacekeeping troops had disarmed most former combatants and had made the countryside safer. Bagirishya said the latest donation of EU food aid, although welcome, would only enable him to keep going for six weeks. "Because of our increasing caseload of target beneficiaries, about US$5million worth of food is required to feed our beneficiaries per month. $8million will help, but it cannot cope with the demands out there for food," he said. WFP has been reducing food rations steadily in Liberia since July.