WFP starts airdropping food

2004-08-02 16:30

Nairobi - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Monday it had started to airdrop urgent food supplies into inaccessible areas in Sudan's war-ravaged western region of Darfur, where the population has been cut off from aid by rains and insecurity.

The first food supplies were airdropped on Sunday in the farming town of Fur Buranga in West Darfur, the state hardest hit by the rainy season, the WFP said in a statement released in Nairobi.

"The food will assist more than 70 000 displaced people and local residents who have been cut off from aid because of the rainy season and insecurity," said the statement.

The remote region has not only been riven by conflict since February last year, but the United Nations describes the situation in Darfur as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis.

Up to 50 000 people have died and more than a million been driven from their homes since ethnic minority rebels launched an uprising early last year against the Sudanese army and its Arab militia allies, the Janjaweed.

- AFP