CAIRO - The United Nations World Food Programme welcomed today an Egyptian Government donation of over 250 tons of food commodities to war-torn Sudan and Somalia..
The donation to Sudan is 130 metric tons of wheat flour while 60 metric tons of rice, 60 metric tons of wheat flour and three metric tons of vegetable oil will go to Somalia.
The donation, from Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Fund for Technical Cooperation for Africa, has a total value of over US$72,000.
"The donations are extremely timely. Both countries are struggling with major conflicts that have uprooted their populations and left many people destitute and without food, water and housing," said Kenro Oshidari, WFP Representative in Sudan.
In Somalia, even before the recent exodus since February of over 300,000 people from the capital of Mogadishu, WFP has been assisting more than a quarter of a million people each month in areas where there are critical food shortages. WFP gave food to 1.1 million people in Somalia in 2006.
"WFP is deeply concerned that insecurity in and around Mogadishu is limiting access to those displaced by the heavy fighting who now lack food, water and shelter," warned Peter Goossens, WFP's Country Director in Somalia. "WFP hopes to deliver assistance to them as soon as possible."
In Sudan, where the ongoing conflict in Darfur continues to displace millions of people, WFP's emergency operation is providing 682,000 metric tons of food aid at a total cost of US$685 million. This includes assistance to East Sudan and the Three Areas (Abyei, Blue Nile and South Kordofan).
WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, we give food to an average of 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 58 million hungry children, in at least 80 of the world's poorest countries. WFP -- We Feed People..
WFP Global School Feeding Campaign - For just 19 US cents a day, you can help WFP give children in poor countries a healthy meal at school - a gift of hope for a brighter future.Visit our website: www.wfp.org
WFP now provides RSS feeds to help journalists keep up with the latest press releases, videos and photos as they are published on WFP.org. For more details see: http://www.wfp.org/english/?n=999.
WFP now has a dedicated ISDN line in Italy for quality two-way interviews with WFP officials.
For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Simon Crittle, WFP/Juba, South Sudan, Tel. +249-912-167-293, Thuraya: + 882-1621115219
Emilia Casella, WFP/Khartoum, Tel: +249-912-179-190
Peter Smerdon, WFP/Nairobi, Tel.. +254 20 7622 179, Cell. +254 733 528 911
Gregory Barrow, WFP/London, Tel.. +44-20-72409001, Cell. +44-7968-008474
Barry Came, WFP/Rome, Tel: +39-06-6513-2411, Cell. +39 3382225382
Christiane Berthiaume, WFP/Geneva, Tel. +41-22-9178564, Cell. +41-792857304
Jennifer Parmelee, WFP/Washington, Tel. +1-202-6530010 ext. 1149, Cell. +1-202-4223383
Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1-212-9635196, Cell. +1-646-8241112, luescher@un.org
Khaled Mansour, WFP/Cairo, Tel. +202-5281730 ext. 2600, Cell. +20-122-348671
Mia Turner, WFP/Cairo, Tel. +202-5281730 ext. 2610, Cell. +20-122455769