UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Sierra Leone: WFP Press Release 98.02.10

Sierra Leone: WFP Press Release 98.02.10


News Release 10 February 1998

1. WFP STRONGLY CONCERNED ABOUT EFFECT OF FIGHTING ON CIVILIAN POPULATION IN SIERRA LEONE

Abidjan, 10 February 1998 -- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that the fighting in Sierra Leone will have a disastrous effect on hundreds of thousands of people already facing a serious food situation.

WFP has expressed concern that the upsurge in fighting will increase the number of internally displaced people and make more difficult assistance to the most vulnerable sections of the population, in particular children suffering from acute malnutrition. Agencies caring for these children in therapeutic feeding centres have warned that they have only a two week food supply left.

WFP estimates that right now over 200,000 Sierra Leoneans and some 14,000 Liberian refugees, who have been left virtually destitute by the eight-month old conflict, are in need of urgent food assistance. Some of these persons are reduced to begging in Freetown. WFP requires 2,400 tons of food each month in order to feed them, but the agency's stocks in the country have run out. Lack of appropriate clearances have prevented WFP from replenishing them.

"We are deeply concerned about the exacerbating effects of the fighting on the civilians and the thousands of destitute people in Sierra Leone who already confront a serious food shortage," said Paul Ar?s, WFP's Regional Manager for the coastal area of West Africa. " It is expected that last year's harvest will be soon exhausted. In fact, in some areas, farmers are already eating the rice seeds which will be required for the next planting season in May."

WFP has repeatedly requested that the necessary clearance be granted in order to begin shuttling food in a cross-border operation from neighbouring Guinea into Sierra Leone. However, until now such clearance has not been forthcoming.

By diverting food for Sierra Leone to Guinea and C?te d'Ivoire over the past few months, WFP has managed to build-up in Conakry, a regional stock of 3,200 tons of emergency relief food supplies which could be dispatched immediately and feed more than 250,000 people for over one month. WFP could also rapidly supplement this deliveries with additional food commodities in the event it is allowed to take food across the border into Sierra Leone.

Since the May 25 coup in Sierra Leone, commercial food supplies have been severely constrained by the economic embargo. The prices of basic food commodities such as rice and palm oil have tripled, banks and many business remain closed, and thousands of workers have been laid off.

For more information, contact:

Paul Ar?s WFP Regional Manager Abidjan, C?te d'Ivoire Tel. (225) 21 17 09 Wagdi Othman WFP Regional Information Officer Abidjan Tel. (225) 21 17 09

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-extra]

Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980210120413.0074a0ec@africaonline.co.ci> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:04:13 +0000 From: UN DHA IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci> Subject: Sierra Leone: WFP Press Release 98.02.10

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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