Eritrean Food Aid Shipment Reaches Massawa

NAIROBI - Dec 6/04 - IRIN -- Some 42,500 metric tons (MT) of donated wheat worth US $13.8 million has arrived in Eritrea, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Monday. The wheat, it added, would help alleviate the suffering of nearly a million people affected by war, widespread drought and the combined economic impact.

"Eritrea has been ravaged by four consecutive years of drought and currently faces nearly complete crop failure in many areas of what should be the country’s grain belt," WFP country director, Jean-Pierre Cebron, said in a statement.

"We are very grateful to the European Commission and the governments of Ireland, Japan and the United States for their generous cooperation, which will provide three months of essential food support to those most in need, particularly mothers and young children," Cebron added.

The donation, WFP said, would support its emergency and recovery operations in the particularly hard-hit areas of Gash Barka, Debub and Anseba, where nearly one million people depend on food assistance for their survival.

WFP said a recent government nutritional survey had found that malnutrition rates rose significantly in the affected areas in the past year. In some regions, it noted, the acute malnutrition rate is as high as 19%, on a scale in which 15% is seen as an emergency situation.

"Despite the very generous response from the international community, the emergency here is far from over and we will continue to need support well into 2005," Cebron said.

According to WFP, since the end of the 1998-2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war, Eritrea has suffered from drought.

"The destruction caused by war - the prolonged peace process, along with the cumulative effects of drought - have dealt a serious blow to the economy, reducing its capacity to cover food requirements through imports," WFP said.

On 23 November, relief agencies jointly appealed for nearly $157.2 million to fund humanitarian activities in Eritrea in 2005, saying the country had continued to endure the aftermath of war. The consequences of war included destroyed homes, mined villages, shattered livelihoods, hunger and malnutrition, the agencies said in their Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal (CAP) launched in the capital, Asmara.

According to the appeal, donor response to what was asked for, especially in critical non-food requirements, had declined from 57% in 2003 to 38% in 2004, despite the continuing need for help. In 2004, of the 1.9 million vulnerable persons who required food aid, only 1.3 million received it, according to the appeal statement.

Total food-aid needs, taking into account carry-over stocks from the previous year and commercial imports, have been identified as 505,000 MT. From this total, 384,000 MT is the emergency-food aid requirement and WFP will source 262,000 MT.

Copyright (c) 2004 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs