Food aid arrives in Bo

The World Food Programme (WFP) delivered 146 mt of emergency food to Bo, some 170 km south east of Freetown, the UN agency said on Monday in a news release. “More than 60,000 displaced people in the southern towns of Bo and Kenema depend on this food,” Paul Ares, the WFP regional manager said. The food aid, the first WFP delivery in five months, is enough to feed 40,000 people for one week. It was shipped on the ‘Bulk Challenge’ from Freetown to the port of Nitti, some 200 km south of the capital, and then transported northeast by road to Bo. The ship carried 800 mt of food belonging to the WFP and three other aid agencies. “All indications are that their situation will become critical in the coming weeks if food is not quickly distributed to them,” Ares said. Food shipments through Nitti will continue, he added, until WFP can use the Freetown-Bo road. Last April, WFP food stocks ran out in Kenema, some 60 km east of Bo, and, as a result, 51,000 displaced people in the town and nearby Blama received only half of their one-month ration. In Bo, where some 10,000 displaced people depend on food aid, stocks were running out fast, WFP said. On 4 June, the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) promised safe access for humanitarian agencies to all areas under their control.