UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Sudan: WFP Warns of Dangerously Low Stocks, 3/22/99

Sudan: WFP Warns of Dangerously Low Stocks, 3/22/99

SUDAN: WFP warns of dangerously low stocks

NAIROBI, 22 March (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) urgently needs funds to prevent its emergency food supplies for Sudan from running out in June, a statement from the UN food agency said.

The organisation's food stocks are dangerously low, as is the cash needed to ensure speedy delivery of the emergency food aid, it said. "Almost all food items for the southern sector are predicted to run out in June. An additional US $63.8 million is urgently required to provide food for the rest of 1999."

In the northern sector, non cereal items will also be finished in June, while cereals are expected to last until October. "It can take up to four months for food to be purchased and shipped, so contributions are needed now," the statement said.

Some 2.3 million Sudanese rely on WFP food for their survival as a result of civil war, drought and floods. Stocks are predicted to finish at precisely the same time they are needed most during the peak of the "hunger months" from May to October.

During the same period last year, millions of Sudanese faced starvation as a result of an escalation in fighting and crop failure. Although WFP and its partners, through food relief, managed to reduce malnutrition rates in Ajiep - one of the worst-affected areas - from 80 percent in July 1998 to 15 percent in January 1999, malnutrition rates are still unacceptably high in many locations across Sudan.

[ENDS]

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 15:17:11 +0300 (EAT) From: IRIN - Central and Eastern Africa <irin@ocha.unon.org> Subject: SUDAN: WFP warns of dangerously low stocks [19990322]

Editor: Dr. Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D

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