First WFP food delivery to Daru in three months

The World Food Programme (WFP) last week made its first delivery in three months to the eastern Sierra Leonean town of Daru, officials said. "We did not find any glaring cases of malnutrition," a WFP official in Freetown told IRIN on Monday.

, The World Food Programme (WFP) last week made its first delivery in three months to the eastern Sierra Leonean town of Daru, officials said. "We did not find any glaring cases of malnutrition," a WFP official in Freetown told IRIN on Monday.

The official said WFP pre-positioned 25 mt of cereal, pulses and sugar for delivery to the Interim Child Care Centre, a facility for ex-combatant children that is managed by Save the Children. Before the delivery, residents had been coping with bush yams and cassava. One cup of rice costs 750 leones, thrice the price in other government held areas.

Daru, with about 20,000 people, is surrounded by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, the official said, "except for a five-to-ten mile radius from the town", which can only be reached by air. Deliveries on this occasion were made in UNAMSIL helicopters.

WFP is to support the disarmament and demobilisation programme as well as a therapeutic and supplementary programme. The official said the European Union was expected to provide money to the International Medical Corporation for the effort and the WFP would give food.

"We are trying to establish a permanent presence in the east," the official said.

A similar situation prevails in Bumbuna, a government-held town in Tonkolili District surrounded by the RUF. WFP said it had only been able to make small deliveries at a time in helicopters that can take a maximum of two mt of food over short distances. WFP is implementing a supplementary feeding programme to take care of malnutrition in this 10-village cluster of some 25,000 people.