WFP appeals for $98 million to feed victims of conflict in Darfur

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an urgent appeal for US $98 million to help feed people affected by the ongoing conflict in the western region of Darfur, the organisation said on Friday. In a statement, the WFP said the money would be used "to feed the 1.2 million people [and] will address the known emergency needs in Darfur until the end of December when crops planted in May should be harvested". "The need for emergency food aid in Darfur is acute," the statement quoted James Morris, the WFP executive director, as saying. "The conflict has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their farms and homes and left them completely destitute. Food assistance is crucial to saving lives," he added. Welcoming the 8 April ceasefire agreement between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups operating in Darfur, WFP said it was planning to improve its capacity on the ground to assist those in need. Insecurity has in the past hampered the agency's ability to provide assistance. About 60-65 percent of the aid is going to women, because they account "for 80 percent of agricultural production", WFP said. "Women have also suffered most in the violence: while villages have been burnt down, and cattle and possessions looted, it is the women who have been raped or left widowed, and they now form the majority of the traumatised and displaced." The agency added that 91 percent of the aid would go to people who were forced out of their villages before they could plant. WFP warned that the people who had lost everything still faced "the spectre of hunger and death even if the conflict were to end today" and that "the prospects for 2004 are very bleak". "It is not too late to avert a catastrophe in Darfur, but only if those involved and the international community act without further delay," said Morris, who has also been asked by the UN secretary-general to lead a United Nations inter-agency mission from 27 April to 2 May to assess humanitarian needs in Darfur.