Red Cross provides food for Casamance IDPs

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Senegalese Red Cross have started distributing food to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ziguinchor, southern Senegal, a Red Cross official told IRIN on Tuesday. Mame Brahima Tounkara of the Senegalese Red Cross said 24,345 kg of rice and 14,607 kg of millet, provided by the ICRC, were being distributed since Monday to 414 families. Tounkara said each of the 4,869 people would receive five kg of rice and three kg of millet. The IDPs were forced from their homes in the Casamance area by an armed conflict between the state and the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC). The MFDC wants independence for Casamance, an area in southern Senegal wedged between The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. The distributions, which end on Thursday, are the first in Casamance for 2001. Last year, the Red Cross provided a total of 105 mt of food in April, July and August to Casamance IDPs.