Tag Archives: World Food Programme

U.N. aims to air drop food to ISIS-besieged city in eastern Syria

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations plans to make its first air drops of food aid in Syria, to Deir al-Zor, an eastern town of 200,000 besieged by Islamic State militants, the chair of a U.N. humanitarian task force said on Thursday.

U.N. aid agencies do not have direct access to areas held by Islamic State, including Deir al-Zor, where civilians face severe food shortages and sharply deteriorating conditions.

Jan Egeland, speaking to reporters in Geneva a day after U.N. aid convoys reached five areas, some besieged by government forces and others by rebels, said the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) had a “concrete plan” for carrying out the Deir al-Zor operation in coming days.

He said the WFP hoped to make progress reaching “the poor people inside Deir al-Zor, which is besieged by Islamic State. That can only be done by air drops,” said Egeland.

“It’s a complicated operation and would be in many ways the first of its kind,” Egeland said, giving no details of the air operation, which is far more costly than land convoys.

Egeland, who is head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, later told Reuters in Oslo: “It is either airdrops or nothing. Airdrops are a desperate measure in desperate times.”

A WFP official was not available to comment on where cargo planes would depart from or what they would carry.

Deir al-Zor is the main town in a province of the same name. The province links Islamic State’s de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa with territory controlled by the militant group in neighboring Iraq.

Egeland chaired a three-hour meeting of the humanitarian task force on Syria, where he said that many member states pledged support for the attempt to reach Deir al-Zor.

Russia is Syria’s main ally in the five-year war, while Western and Arab states support rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.N. estimates there are 486,700 people in around 15 besieged areas of Syria, and 4.6 million in hard-to-reach areas. In some, starvation deaths and severe malnutrition have been reported.

“We hope to be able to reach the remaining areas in the next days,” Egeland said, adding the group would meet again in a week.

Britain’s foreign minister Philip Hammond said in a statement: “Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is unacceptable. The international community and particularly Russia, which has unique influence, must put pressure on the Assad regime to lift sieges and grant full humanitarian access.”

In the past 24 hours, 114 U.N. trucks delivered life-saving food and medical supplies to 80,000 people in five besieged areas, enough for one month, Egeland said.

These were Madaya, Zabadani and Mouadamiya al-Sham near Damascus, which are under siege by government forces, and the villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province, surrounded by rebel fighters.

It marked the “beginning of the task” assigned by ministers from major and regional powers who met a week ago in Munich.

But some “vital medical items” were not delivered, he said.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said that government forces had removed some medicines for emergency and trauma care from supplies bound for Mouadamiya, but had allowed a hemodialysis machine for diabetics, medicines and nutritional supplements.

(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; additional reporting by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Dominic Evans and Katharine Houreld)

Food insecurity on the rise in South Sudan, Haiti

More than 6 million people in South Sudan and Haiti are facing food insecurity, United Nations agencies warned this week, including thousands who could soon face catastrophic shortages.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and two other U.N. groups issued the warning for South Sudan on Monday, saying that 4.8 million of the country’s residents are at risk of going hungry. That includes about 40,000 people who the agency warned “are on the brink of catastrophe.”

The WFP issued its own warning for Haiti on Tuesday, saying the El Nino weather pattern fueled a drought that has 3.6 million people facing food insecurity, double the total of six months ago.

In a joint statement, the WFP, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the South Sudan situation was “particularly worrisome” because the country is about to enter its lean season, when food is the most scarce.

They warn about 1 in 4 people in South Sudan require urgent assistance.

A recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, a barometer for measuring food security, found 23 percent of South Sudan is at risk of “acute food and nutrition insecurity” in the first three months of this year. It said the majority of them live in the states of Unity, Jonglei and Upper Nile, where ongoing violent conflicts have forced many from their homes.

The report indicated there was “overwhelming evidence of a humanitarian emergency” in some areas, noting some people were eating water lilies, and warned the situation would likely worsen as water dried up in the coming weeks. The report could not confirm if parts of the country were already experiencing famine, as fighting prevented researchers from accessing certain areas.

The report said the country is also grappling with the effects of a drop in the value of its currency, which sent prices surging. It said the price of Sorghum, a cereal grain, increased 11-fold in a year.

The agencies said it was important they be given the chance to supply aid to those in need.

“Families have been doing everything they can to survive but they are now running out of options,” Jonathan Veitch, the UNICEF representative in South Sudan, said in a statement. “Many of the areas where the needs are greatest are out of reach because of the security situation. It’s crucial that we are given unrestricted access now. If we can reach them, we can help them.”

The WFP is also looking to help Haiti.

According to the organization, the country has seen three straight years of drought and an abnormally strong El Nino weather pattern is threatening to spoil the country’s next harvest.

El Nino occurs when part of the Pacific Ocean is warmer than usual, creating a ripple effect that brings atypical and sometimes extreme weather throughout the world. It’s been blamed for creating heavy flooding in some regions and droughts in others, both of which can spoil harvests.

The WFP said some parts of the country lost 70 percent of last year’s crops, and approximately 1.5 million Haitians are facing severe food insecurity. Others face malnutrition and hunger.