UN sends record 114,000 metric tonnes of food aid to Afghanistan this month

Far surpassing previous records, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered an unprecedented 114,000 metric tonnes of food into Afghanistan during the month of December.

"This record level - reached against the backdrop of looted warehouses and destroyed offices, ripped up phone lines and trashed computers, stolen trucks, treacherous roads, snowed-in communities, inter-factional fighting, and active militias - will cover the food needs of 6 million Afghans for two months," said agency spokesman Jordan Dey.

He attributed the agency's success to its ability to keep roads open while fully utilizing shipping ports in Iran and Pakistan. "The WFP logistical operation is in full swing," he said.

Mr. Dey called the agency’s Afghanistan effort “one of the largest, most complicated and most dangerous food aid programmes ever carried out by WFP in its nearly 40 years of existence.”

Despite these accomplishments, the spokesman warned that numerous challenges lay ahead. "The overall security environment must be improved in Afghanistan; the humanitarian community still needs access to Kandahar, mines and UXO's [unexploded ordnance] still pose a threat to WFP staff and trucks."