WFP seeks funding as refugees face hunger

The WFP has made an urgent appeal to international donors for funds to feed refugees at the Osire refugee camp in northern Namibia. The UN’s food agency said in a statement that it’s Namibia operation had so far only received 30 percent of the funds it needed, forcing it to reduce monthly basic food rations of 2,100 kilocalories by 20 percent. “We are quickly running out of food and out of time,” said Ronald Sibanda, WFP Country Director in Angola who oversees WFP’s emergency operation for mostly Angolan refugees in Namibia. “If we don’t receive more help from the donor community soon, we will see a dangerous rupture in the food pipeline and rations will have to be cut even further.” Christiane Berthiaume, WFP spokeswoman in Geneva told IRIN on Wednesday that new refugees fleeing the war in Angola were continuing to cross over into Namibia to the Osire camp. WFP said the governments of the United States and Sweden had already given US $330,000 and US $96,000 respectively. “These donations will cover food needs until August, at which point food stocks at the camp will run out unless further funds are received from donors,” the statement said. According to the WFP, refugees who fled to Namibia typically arrived weak and exhausted. It said a combination of gastric disorders and malaria, combined with low food intake, left many refugees, especially children aged under five years old, suffering from severe malnutrition. Meanwhile, in its first quarter update on the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Angola, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that so far only 15 percent of the US $200 million Appeal had been funded. “UN Agencies working in key sectors, including non-food items and disaster preparedness, water and sanitation, refugees and resettlement have received no pledges or contributions. Some agencies were forced to take extraordinary measures to keep critical programmes going. Unless additional funding is received urgently, several programmes are facing possible closure,” OCHA warned. The OCHA report can be found at: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/UNID/EA04A21D7A1E00CDC1256A3E005CE761?OpenDocument