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WFP needs US $378,000 to resume food airlift to Katanga
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says it needs US $378,000 to resume its emergency food airlift to some 25,000 people in the northern part of Congo's Katanga province. WFP reported on Friday that it had enough money in its emergency fund to begin the operation but would need more because of the prevailing precarious humanitarian situation in Katanga.
"It is critical that we receive donations as soon as possible otherwise the lives of thousands of people, the vast majority being women and children, will be at risk once again," said David Schaad, the WFP officer in charge, Kinshasa, DRC.
The three-week airlift, which will operate from WFP's hub at Kalemie, will deliver 500 mt of urgently needed maize, beans and vegetable oil to residents of Nyunzu, Manono, Kabalo, Kongolo, Mulongo and Kiambi. The food is enough to last untill December, WFP reported.
The airlift is the only way of reaching people in north of Katanga, who have been cut off by war. The agency says it is "particularly concerned" about people in the towns of Mulongo and Kiambi who, until now, have been unreachable by road and air.
Thousands of people fled their homes for the forests when the war started in 1998. However, with the arrival of the UN peace mission, MONUC, thousands of IDPs have started streaming back to urban areas in search of aid. An assessment by WFP and its NGO partner Nuova Frontiera revealed that 11 in every 10,000 children under five years old were dying daily with fever and malnutrition.
In its first airlift from June to July, WFP delivered 400 mt of emergency food aid, leading to what it said was "a drastic decrease in the number of malnourished people" reaching feeding centres in the northern part of the province. Admissions to such a facility in Nyunzu have fallen from 1,000 people a day to 250. Yet, WFP says it is "still deeply concerned" that hundreds of thousands of people living in isolated villages are without food.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
