Food aid convoy, traversing Sahara, will soon reach refugees in Chad – UN agency

Food aid for some 250,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad is on its way in convoys travelling some 2,800 kilometres through the Sahara desert from Libya, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today.

The agency said that 58 trucks left Al Khufra in Libya in late December and will reach north-eastern Chad later this month, in a push to reach the refugees before the onset of seasonal rains.

“The resumption of the Libyan corridor operation is a race against the clock,” Mamadou Mbaye, WFP Country Director in Chad, said, adding, “we have five months to deliver food aid to the refugee camps in eastern Chad before the rainy season blocks the roads.”

A second convoy of nearly 100 trucks departed Al Khufra this past weekend.

Since August 2004, Libya has been providing a ground transport corridor from the port of Benghazi through the Sahara to Chad.

Most of the Sudanese refugees in Chad are fleeing violence in Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and another 2.7 million have been forced from their homes since fighting erupted in 2003, pitting rebels against Government forces and allied Janjaweed militiamen.

In addition, WFP feeds 180,000 internally displaced Chadians; 57,000 refugees from the Central Africa Republic; and 150,000 local people affected by the influx to the country.

An additional 215,000 Chadians in the food-deficient Sahelian zone of the country also receive WFP food assistance, the agency said.