New York firefighters, police set to deliver relief aid for UN effort in Afghanistan

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is set to receive more than 29 metric tonnes of emergency food assistance for Afghanistan from a group of New York City firefighters and police officers, an agency spokesman said today in Pakistan.

“WFP welcomes this act of friendship and solidarity with the firefighters and policemen of New York City and is happy to be facilitating the delivery,” spokesman Jordan Dey told a press briefing in Islamabad.

The six-man team, which left New York on Tuesday, was on its way to Belgium, where it will load cooking oil, rice, powdered milk and wool blankets onto a cargo plane. The shipment is scheduled to arrive at Bagram airbase, 32 miles north of Kabul, on Friday morning.

The supplies will be received by WFP and delivered to an orphanage in Kabul by the officers, many of whom were involved in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center site.