BAGHDAD – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a contribution of €2 million from the Government of Germany to help fund its emergency field kitchens in Iraq supplying hot meals to over a quarter of a million people
Since August, WFP, alongside its local partner, the Barzani Charity Foundation, has successfully served more than 6 million meals to displaced people in Dohuk and Erbil cities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The kitchens were first set up to help families fleeing persecution and violence in Sinjar who were unable to cook the contents of WFP’s standard food parcels.
The meals have fed more than 264,000 displaced people, bringing the total number assisted by WFP since the outbreak of the crisis in Mosul in mid-June to over 800,000. Another type of assistance are food parcels containing essential items such as rice and cooking oil given to displaced groups. The parcels constitute the bulk of WFP’s assistance. Each parcel feeds a family of five for one month. A third type of assistance is emergency rations including canned food for people on the move who need immediate support.
“WFP’s partnership with the Government of Germany will enable us to finance the emergency field kitchen operations. Not only are these kitchens feeding many families and helping them settle, but they are also providing relief until humanitarian partners can supply urgently-needed cooking utensils and other items,” said Jane Pearce, Country Director for the WFP Office in Iraq.
WFP provides the field kitchens with its regular food parcels, including lentils and pasta, while the Barzani Charity Foundation supplies other commodities and cooks the meals.
Before the latest wave of displacements, WFP was already assisting about 240,00 people displaced by conflict in Iraq’s al-Anbar governorate, as well as more than 180,000 refugees from the conflict in Syria, who are sheltering in Iraq.
WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food in emergencies and working with communities to build resilience. In 2013, WFP assisted more than 80 million people in 75 countries.
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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Shaimaa Fayed, WFP/Erbil, Mobile: +9647508976184
Abeer Etefa, WFP/Cairo, Mobile: +2 010 6663 4352
Jane Howard, WFP/Rome, Mobile: +393467600521
Gregory Barrow, WFP/London, Tel. +44 20 72409001, Mob. +44 7968 008474
Elisabeth Byrs, WFP/Geneva, Tel. +41 22 917 8564, Mob. +41 79 473 4570
Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1-646-5566909, Mob. +1 646 8241112