UN efforts to feed 1.45 million displaced Ugandans running out of funds
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that its operation to feed more than 1.45 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda will run out of donations in December and it urgently needs $58 million in cash contributions to buy food locally to feed almost the entire population of the region.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that its operation to feed more than 1.45 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda will run out of donations in December and it urgently needs $58 million in cash contributions to buy food locally to feed almost the entire population of the region.
“Ninety percent of the displaced in Uganda heavily depend on WFP food and nutritional assistance for their survival,” the Director of WFP’s Geneva liaison office, Daly Belgasmi, said on his return from a week-long visit to the country.
“This is a major operation to assist people whose livelihoods have been crushed by decades of a cruel conflict,” he added of those who have been living for years in 135 overcrowded and unsanitary camps after fleeing their homes for fear of attacks by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
WFP is one of the only providers of humanitarian aid in northern Uganda, where the 19-year conflict with the LRA has wreaked havoc on the lives of the population.
Killings and abductions are common and there are reports of innocent people being disfigured, with lips and ears sliced off by the rebels.
“Without continued WFP support to the IDPs through mid 2006, malnutrition rates, particularly among children, would likely skyrocket,” WFP Country Director Ken Davies said.
“WFP, in collaboration with the Government and NGOs, is doing all it can to ensure that the nutritional needs of the displaced continue to be met but additional funding from the international community is imperative if we are going to be able to maintain this positive trend,” he added.
A recent health and mortality survey conducted by the Ministry of Health with UN technical support concluded that the death rates for hundreds of thousands of children displaced by the conflict remain above the emergency threshold. It found that among the IDPs, 80 per cent of whom are women and children, roughly one person per 10,000 dies every day – a figure which is double for children under five.