WFP bridges gap to feed more than 1 million people in central Somalia

The United Nations World Food Programmes (WFP) has agreed to feed more than 1 million people in central Somalia, after a non-governmental organization (NGO) was forced to withdraw from the area due to security threats.

The agency will open a field office in the central Somali town of Beletweyne to provide food assistance to over 1 million people made hungry by drought, conflict and hyperinflation in the regions of Hiraan, Galgadud, Mudug and North Gedo.

WFP, which itself has had two of its employees shot to death in Somalia earlier this year, said it had signed an agreement with local elders and authorities aimed at protection for agency staff and local partners.

“There is a very large need of food assistance here,” said Kathy Derore, WFP Programme Officer, shortly after meeting elders and authorities in Beletweyne to finalize plans for the new office. “We need to be closer to the people who need our help.”

Three masked gunmen shot and killed Somali national Ibrahim Hussein Duale, 44, on 6 January, while he was monitoring school feeding in a WFP-supported school near Gedo. On 8 January, three gunmen shot and killed 49-year-old Mohamud Omar Moallim, a Somali national, as he was monitoring the distribution of food to displaced people in a camp north-west of Mogadishu.

These killings brought the number of WFP staff killed in Somalia since August 2008 to four.