US in “bold humanitarian gesture”

The World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed the United States’ donation of food aid worth more than US $60 million to help in the fight against starvation in Sudan. The donation would be used to relieve the suffering of nearly three million drought- and war-affected communities throughout the country, WFP said. This followed the announcement on 27 May by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that the US was pledging 40,000 mt of food for emergency programmes in the country.

Emergency food aid was badly needed, as Sudan was entering the hunger-gap months when food needs were traditionally at their highest, said Masood Hyder, WFP country representative in Khartoum. “This gift will make the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children,” he added. “What the US has done is quite remarkable. Now they have dramatically increased their commitment in a bold humanitarian gesture,” he said.

Sudan’s worst drought in decades has hit hardest the regions of Darfur and Kordofan, where there have been three consecutive poor rainy seasons, bringing spiralling malnutrition rates and increased migration to the urban centres. “We’ve been scraping together every grain of food we could find to tide people over, but the situation had really become desperate, with no significant food shipments in sight,” Masood said.