NAIROBI, 3 August 2004 — The UN World Food Program said yesterday 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 rainy season and insecurity,” said the statement.
The statement said that the UN food agency will drop a total of 1,400 tons of food — corn-soy blend, pulses, cereals and salt — to seven sites in Darfur, namely Habilla, Arara, Beida, Kongo Harasa, Mastari, Morni and well as Fur Buranga.
“Dropping food by air is always an expensive last resort, but for many parts of Darfur we simply have no other option at this time of the year,” Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP’s country director, said in the statement.
“The start of these airdrops, which require an enormous amount of planning and resource, is a further sign of our commitment to ensure that the people of Darfur are given all possible assistance to survive in the most appalling crisis,” he said.
“But to do this properly, we urgently need contributions of money and food,” Lopes da Silva added. 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.
