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UN: Million need food aid
01/01/2005 20:39 - (SA)
United Nations - More than one million people in Indonesia and more than 700 000 in Sri Lanka will need food aid for months after the tsunami disaster, the United Nations said on Saturday.
Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, said he could not say exactly how long those affected would need the supplies but that it would be for months and not weeks.
"We will need to feed over one million people in Indonesia alone," said Egeland, who is directing the day-to-day operation of what is believed to be the largest international relief effort in history.
Indonesia's Aceh area is one of the areas hardest hit by last Sunday's tsunamis, which Egeland estimated has killed around 150 000 - a number he said is expected to rise.
"We've begun the airlifting to Aceh over the last 48 hours and it will be stepped up dramatically," he said. "We will (also) need to feed over 700 000 in Sri Lanka."
He said around 140 000 people in Sri Lanka were already receiving food supplies.
With food pouring in as part of the roughly two billion dollars in aid pledged from around the world so far, he stressed that a crucial need was for logistical support to deliver the aid.
"We need to make small damaged airstrips some of the busiest airports in the world," he said. "We need helicopter carriers, we need ships with helicopters that can be outside on the coasts and not clog the airstrips."
He said he had outlined the immediate needs in a telephone conference late Friday with Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, the Netherlands and the so-called "core group" of the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
In addition to the carriers, the relief effort needs air traffic control units, 100 boats and landing craft, several hundred lorries, hundreds of water treatment units and both C-17 and C-130 transport planes, Egeland said.
- AFP
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