WFP Wants Beans, Sugar for Darfur Refugees

NAIROBI - Feb 17/05 - IRIN -- Displaced families in the western Sudanese region of Darfur are likely to be affected by the large shortfall in donations of non-cereal food items received so far, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said.

The shortfall was also hindering efforts to preposition food stocks before the rainy season, the agency warned.

"WFP appealed for US $438 million to feed 2.8 million people in Darfur in 2005, but has so far received $240 million in donations," Peter Smerdon, senior spokesperson of WFP, told IRIN on Wednesday.

"Having received over 50% of our 2005 appeal by mid-February might sound good, but the problem is the donations WFP received were mainly for cereals, resulting in a large shortfall for other food items, such as beans, sugar and salt," Smerdon explained.

Food contributions from abroad would take up to four months to reach Port Sudan and another two months to reach Darfur, he estimated.

"We urgently require non-cereal contributions by March so that we can preposition food supplies in Darfur, before the start of the rainy season renders large areas inaccessible by land in July," he said.

The rains were also expected to increase the prevalence of waterborne diseases, such as malaria, as well as global acute malnutrition rates across Darfur.

Without rapid assistance, a recent improvement in the food situation of about two million people driven from their homes by violence in the region could be reversed, the agency said.

Smerdon said a recent survey by the aid agency Save the Children-US in West Darfur had found malnutrition rates of around 6.6% among the displaced population, down from 22% during a similar WFP survey last September.

Similarly, food surveys in Kalma Camp in South Darfur by the medical relief agency Medicines Sans Frontiers-Holland, recorded a drop in malnutrition rates from 23% in September to 10% in January.

Despite these improvements food assistance remained crucial as displaced families relied almost entirely on food aid.

Due to increased insecurity, the long Eid Islamic holiday and competing demands on Port Sudan by the commercial sector, the number of people reached by food aid in Darfur dropped from 1.4 million in December to 1.2 million in January.

Meanwhile, the British Red Cross Society warned that one of the greatest current needs in Darfur was water.

"The needs are huge," Paul Conneally, communications coordinator of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Darfur, said in a statement.

"Communities, which used to have a population of up to 10,000 people, now have between 80,000 and 90,000 people living there," Conneally said. "The strain on the resources is immense, particularly on water."

The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias, allegedly allied to the government, against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalization and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and up to 1.85 million internally displaced or forced to flee to neighboring Chad.

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