World Food Program Issues Urgent Appeal

WASHINGTON - Jun 7/04 - SNS -- The World Food Program (WFP) has issued an urgent appeal for international aid so it can expand its operations in both Sudan and Chad, where at least one million people have been driven from their homes and farms by the fighting in Darfur.

WFP is accelerating its deliveries and pre-positioning emergency food aid across the region, before the imminent rainy season disrupts the road network on both sides of the border.

"The situation in Darfur is becoming more critical every day; the worst is still to come," said WFP Country Director for Sudan, Ramiro Lopes da Silva. WFP's Representative in Chad, Philippe Guyon Le Bouffy, echoed this: "The challenges of feeding refugees along a 600-kilometer border where there are virtually no roads are already immense; the rains will hamper our efforts further."

Despite the tenuous humanitarian cease-fire since 8 April, people are still fleeing across the Sudanese border into Chad, prompting WFP to revise beneficiary figures to 180,000 refugees from 100,000 in April. In May alone, WFP supplied more than 1,000 metric ones (MT) of food to over 75,000 refugees in eastern Chad.

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