Food aid reaches 44,000 people after years of isolation

The International NGO World Vision and two UN agencies have begun evaluating a joint food-aid delivery to 44,000 war displaced now living in Ankoro, in the territory of Manono, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday.

OCHA and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) - partners with World Vision in this relief effort - visited Ankoro on Thursday, where 8,000 malnourished children under five years old are among the internally displaced persons, who have been without aid for three years.

Over a three-month period, World Vision will distribute 556 mt of maize, soya, oil, sugar and salt to the displaced. After this period, World Vision and WFP will determine if more aid is still needed.

Food distributions are also taking place in Kitanda, Kibao, Kiofwe, Kuboko-Kamina, Kizuki, Kashia, Makena, Kitanda - the towns and villages where the displaced are concentrated. Most of them come from Manono, Nyunzu, Kabalo and Lenge. They had been receiving food aid at the time the war started in August 1998, but this has been interrupted for the last three years by insecurity and the inaccessibility of the area.

OCHA reported that the area was "totally isolated" because of the poor state of roads and by the closure of river traffic. The access route to Ankoro is by the railway running northeast from Kamina through Kitanda. The only road capable of taking trucks is that linking Kitanda and Ankoro. The remaining roads in the Manono area can only be used by bicycle or mopeds.

Apart from the current aid, World Vision was supplying essential drugs to the Ankoro referral hospital, OCHA reported. "The nutritional situation in this area is not extremely grave, other than the displaced, who do not have land to farm," it added.