NAIROBI, 27 August 2004 — The UN World Food Program yesterday said it has launched the second phase of relief food airdrops to areas in Sudan’s Darfur region, despite the heavy rains battering the region. “In order to deliver much-needed food to people living in camps around El-Geneina, the second phase of airdrops includes the town itself and is already under way,” WFP said in a statement sent to AFP in Nairobi.

“The second phase also includes several sites beyond El-Geneina and will target a total of nearly 140,000 displaced people,” the statement said, adding that some 72,000 people have already been reached with 1,832 tons of food since the first phase started on Aug. 1. The WFP said the rains in Darfur has affected delivery of food by road and air.

“The rains continue to play havoc with Darfur’s severely limited and overstretched surface transport network and reports continue to be received of trucks struggling to negotiate roads turned into mud by heavy rains, as well as poor surfaces elsewhere,” it added.

On Wednesday, six relief trucks got stuck in thick sand on a road from El-Obeid to El-Fasher and it took 10 hours to dig them out, while in mid-August, heavy rains buckled the railway between El-Obeid and Nyala, resulting in the derailment of a train carrying WFP food. “Delivery of food by air has become the only option in some areas of Darfur, particularly the far west around the town of El-Geneina,” the statement said.

“Air operations are not immune to the effects of the rains, as heavy downpours have already caused postponement of airdrops by 24 hours in some cases,” it said. The UN estimates that up to 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels rose up in February 2003 against the government in Khartoum, which responded with attacks carried out by a proxy militia on tribes backing the rebellion.

Another 1.2 million people are displaced in Darfur itself, while up to 200,000 more have been settled in makeshift camps in equally impoverished eastern Chad, according to the UN.

The WFP said it is constantly increasing its capacity to deliver food in Darfur by reinforcing staffing levels on the ground. “Nearly 50 more are to be deployed over the next four weeks, taking the number of WFP staff in Darfur to more than 250,” WFP said. “We are also planning to purchase 12,000 tons of sorghum within Sudan over the next two weeks, all of which is bound for the Darfur.”

Also yesterday, the French Army has sent “nearly 450 tons” of humanitarian aid to refugees fleeing into neighboring Chad, the French Defense Ministry said in Paris yesterday. Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said that the aid was being sent in two or three shipments per day to the estimated 180,000 Darfur refugees sheltered in eastern Chad. “This emergency aid has led to an improvement of the situation,” Bureau told journalists in Paris.

The 18-month conflict in Darfur has claimed up to 50,000 lives and forced more than 1.2 million people to flee from their homes. In addition, some 200 French soldiers are assisting Chad’s military in patrolling its border with Sudan, Bureau said.