Critical food aid rupture narrowly avoided - WFP

A series of recent donor contributions had averted a rupture of the emergency food pipeline for 270,000 displaced people and rural deportees in Eritrea, the WFP said on Friday. “We are most grateful for the recent wave of donations which have arrived just in time to ensure relief aid is provided to displaced and war-affected persons who are in desperate need of food. Our food pipeline was facing a critical break, and we feared that supplies would run out,” said Kofi Owusu-Tieku, WFP Emergency Coordinator in Asmara.

While the nutritional status of the affected populations had “generally improved,” displaced people who had not been able to cultivate their farms during the last agricultural season would continue to depend on food aid until at least the next harvest in December, Owusu-Tieko added. A contribution of 6,641 mt by The Netherlands on Friday followed a series of donations from Japan, the European Union, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Finland and the US totalling over 25,000 mt in recent weeks.