ICRC seed distribution resumes

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has resumed the distribution of seeds and tools to destitute farmers in eastern Sierra Leone, most of whom have been displaced from their homes by fighting over the last few years, the ICRC reported on Wednesday.

Since the beginning of the week some 2,000 families in Kenema District have begun receiving supplies from the ICRC. The distributions had been interrupted by recent clashes near Masiaka along the main road from Freetown to Kenema and by the general lack of security in the country.

The distribution of upland rice seeds (the cereal is a staple in Sierra Leone) needs to be completed before the end of the planting season, in mid-June, ICRC said. If the programme goes according to plan, it added, more than 200,000 people in Kenema and Kailahun in the east, Pujehun in the south and the north-central district of Tonkolili will be able to feed themselves when the next harvest comes.

The success of the seed and tools programme, which aims to reach some 40,000 farmers, depends in part on the repairing of the Mabang bridge, situated on a safer alternative route that bypasses the area where recent fighting has taken place.

The bridge has been impassable for trucks for years but the ICRC says it hopes it will be rebuilt by the end of this week, thus opening a new supply route for aid, civilian and commercial traffic between Freetown and the south.