Ivorian unrest halts WFP aid

2006-01-25 22:41

Abidjan - The United Nations food agency on Wednesday announced it had suspended operations in the Ivory Coast following last week's unrest and attacks on UN peacekeepers.

"WFP was forced to halt all operations in the country until further notice following last week's disturbances," the World Food Program said in a statement.

Backers of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo last week went on a rampage for four days after the UN-backed international working group (IWG) overseeing the ethnically divided country's transition called for the dissolution of the parliament, whose term expired last month.

The move had been aimed at strengthening the hand of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, a central bank economist appointed to oversee disarmament and prepare elections this year in the world's leading cocoa producer split in half since an armed uprising in September 2002.

The food agency said most humanitarian groups were forced to evacuate their staff from one key western centre after UN facilities were attacked, cutting off food supplies to thousands of Liberian and Burkinabe refugees.

"For the time being there is no possibility for our staff to return to Guiglo, it is simply too dangerous," WFP Ivory Coast director Abdou Dieng said in the statement.

"The only people to suffer from this kind of setback are those who have suffered far too much already," said Dieng.

- AFP