Burundi's Food Aid Need Worsens

NAIROBI - Jan 19/05 - IRIN -- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed on Wednesday that more than half a million people are in need of food aid in northern Burundi.

"WFP will assist at least 520,000 people in the provinces of Kirundo and Muyinga for the next two months," WFP said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Earlier in January, Burundi’s president, Domitien Ndayizeye, issued a decree calling the situation in the two provinces "a famine". However, speaking to IRIN, the WFP spokesman in Burundi, Guillaume Folio, described the situation as "a serious food shortage".

The shortages follow poor harvest in 2004, WFP said, adding that "a combination of drought and manioc mosaic virus has seriously reduced crop production".

This January, WFP said, it delivered 1,485 metric tons (MT) of food aid to 176,000 people in the communes of Budsoni, Bugabira and Kirundo, all in Kirundo Province, that was one of the worst affected by food shortages. In 2004, WFP said its food aid amounted to $4.5 million and that "almost one million people" received 6,900 MT of WFP food. It said half of this was distributed from June onwards, "when the first reports of poor harvest and consequent food shortages started to emerge".

WFP said "following suspicions that food aid was not being targeted to the most vulnerable", it was also "working with representatives of the local administration, civil society and churches to obtain the most accurate possible lists of people in need of food assistance".

IRIN has not yet been able to contact the NGOs or local authorities for comment.

WFP said "a couple of weeks" after food distribution, monitoring teams were being sent "to verify if the right amount of food is reaching families who need it and whether the food is consumed by those families".

The agency said, so far, it only had enough money to help drought-affected and other food insecure people in Burundi for the next five months.

"An additional $25 million is required to feed these communities between June and December 2005," it said.

A government decree issued on Thursday requests workers and businesses in Burundi to make payments of various specified amounts to aid the victims and called on international NGOs and donors to increase their help.

Copyright (c) 2005 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs