UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
News Release
WFP FORCED TO LAUNCH ADDITIONAL
FOOD AIRLIFTS TO BRAZZAVILLE
TO STEM GROWING HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
28 January 1999, Abidjan
-- The UN World Food Programme today resumed its airlift
to the beleaguered city of Brazzaville, Republic of
Congo (ROC), to halt the rapidly deteriorating situation
gripping over 50,000 people.
This morning the agency began a 1,000-ton food airlift,
one of the largest to the Central Africa region in
over a year. The operation utilizes five Antonov aircraft
making daily food shuttles to Brazzaville, from the
port city of Pointe Noire, where WFP had pre-positioned
emergency food stocks last August in anticipation of
continued conflict in the region.
Reports from WFP staff based in Brazzaville indicate
that malnutrition and disease have reached critical
levels in most of the 15 sites in the north of the
city, where over 50,000 displaced people have gathered.
They fled their homes in the south of the country when
fighting broke out in the Pool and southern Brazzaville
regions at the end of last year.
Continued insecurity in the city has discouraged people
from leaving the sites and returning home, prolonging
the crisis and exacerbating an already poor health
situation.
These people have been hanging on, trying to survive
in a steadily worsening situation for nearly two months
now, said Rigobert Oura, WFPs Emergency Officer for
Brazzaville. Most are living in overcrowded public
sites with no electricity, running water or medical
facilities. They are completely dependent on the limited
food aid supplies we can get to them.
Sporadic fighting in Brazzaville continues to hamper
aid agency efforts to bring in additional staff and
assistance to deal with the growing problem. UN agencies
have recently been forced to relocate to Kinshasa the
limited international staff who had been working in
Brazzaville because of the increased security risks.
National staff continue to carryout emergency work
on behalf of the agencies in the absence of any sustained
international presence.
Our Congolese staff are under tremendous strain trying
to run massive relief programmes under incredibly difficult
circumstances, said Oura. Without them, virtually no
assistance would reach these people desperately in
need.
The airlift is expected to last for one week. As in
past operations, some of the food is being transported
by barge from Brazzaville to Kinshasa to feed war-affected
families in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Over the past five months, WFP has airlifted nearly
2,200 tons of food aid to keep emergency programmes
operating in the ROC and DRC.
WFP only utilizes airlifts, which are more expensive
than traditional transport methods, when no other options
are available. The agency warns that if sustained assistance
is needed in the weeks ahead and rail and road routes
have not re-opened, additional funding will be required
to cover the cost of continuing to airlift food supplies.
-Ends-
The World Food Programme is the United Nations front-line
agency in the fight against global hunger. Last year
its relief workers fed 53 million people. Based in
Rome, Italy the agency operates in 76 countries around
the world.
For more information, contact:
Rigobert Oura Emergency Officer Brazzaville WFP Kinshasa
Tel. (243-88) 40705
Wagdi Othman Information Officer WFP Abidjan Tel. (225)
211709
Michele Quintaglie Information Officer WFP Kenya Tel.
(254-2) 622336
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:09:44 -0300 (GMT+3) From: IRIN - Central and Eastern Africa <irininfo@ocha.unon.org> Subject: CONGO-BRAZZAVILLE: WFP to launch additional airlifts 1999.1.29
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, aadinar@sas.upenn.edu