WFP suspends food aid in the south

The World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Thursday that it had suspended the delivery of food aid to refugees in the southern Guinean town of Guekedou because of rebel attacks. “In the absence of a safer environment, we’ll have to find alternative ways to assist the local residents and refugees there,” Ardag Meghdessian, WFP’s representative in Conakry, said. WFP and other UN agencies have relocated their staff to safer areas. WFP said that before the fighting it was helping some 300,000 refugees and displaced people. Armed incursions and rebel attacks in Guekedou, near Guinea’s border with Liberia and Sierra Leone, have forced residents to flee and compelled aid agencies to reduce dramatically their operations in the area, WFP said. Guinea is host the Africa’s second largest refugee population: 130,000 are Liberians and 330,000 Sierra Leoneans.