Food distributed at Jalozai camp

The World Food Programme (WFP) began food distributions on Monday to more than 70,000 Afghan refugees at the makeshift Jalozai camp in Peshawar, the capital pf Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. This is the first time since January that WFP has been given sufficient access to Jalozai by provincial Pakistani authorities, which, feeling overburdened by a new influx of refugees, had then suspended UNHCR’s refugee verification process and blocked access by UN agencies. In April, WFP together with Medecins sans Frontiers (MSF) was able to support a limited feeding scheme for 200 malnourished children in the camp. However, food relief by NGOs has been on an ad hoc basis with many refugees resorting to begging on the local market to survive, WFP maintains. “Most people have been surviving on one meal a day consisting of bread and a cup of tea,” Khaled Mansour, WFP’s Regional Public Affairs Officer in Islamabad, told IRIN after visiting the camp. Monday’s distribution worth US $110,000 included 600 mt of wheat flour and 50 mt of cooking oil, which is considered sufficient to last one month. Mansour said WFP hoped to resume supplies after the one-month period, pending approval from the provincial government and sufficient resources. There had been fears of scuffles during Monday’s distribution, but Yusuf Hassan, spokesman for UNHCR-Pakistan, told IRIN: “The food aid distribution went well. It was very well coordinated with no problems, and done in a peaceful and orderly way.” WFP officials, who have been expressing concern for the destitute Afghans in Jalozai camp for some time, now say that this new wave of food distribution will ease their situation. WFP has been supplying food aid to other Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar since the start of the year. “In 2001, WFP is bringing more than 12,000 mt of food to support the poorest Afghan refugees in Shamshatoo and Akora Khattak [camps] at a total cost of US$4.87 million. But this commitment could increase if conditions permit in Jalozai camp,” Rahman Chowdury, WFP Programme Adviser, said. The temporary reprieve by authorities in Peshawar follows a visit early in May by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers.