WFP Suspends Food Aid In Mozambique
Maputo, 28 Jan (AIM) – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Friday that it is suspending, as from February, its food aid to people displaced by terrorist attacks and their host communities in northern Mozambique.
The WFP says it is taking this measure because it has run out of money to provide humanitarian assistance to over a million people affected by terrorism, in Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula provinces. Currently the WFP only has money to guarantee food aid to these beneficiaries until the end of January.
The WFP representative in Mozambique, Antonella d’Aprile, gave this information on Friday during a visit to the WFP warehouses in Maputo by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
However, the suspension of food aid might only be temporary. D’Aprile told reporters that the WFP’s aid could be resumed in March, with the support of the United States. For this to happen 2.5 million dollars would be necessary – enough to ensure food aid for a further six months.
“We have to suspend food aid in February”, she said. “But we shall resume operations in March. We are also trying to boost efforts to design programmes that are more sustainable, and more tied to development”.
D’Aprile said that, to avoid still greater impacts on the beneficiary households, “we are undertaking a consciousness raising campaign with all the communities and community leaders so that they understand the food being distributed in January will also have to cover some of February’s needs.
The visit by Thomas-Greenfield, she added, expanded the prospects for raising more funds for the displaced people and the host communities. But the money should not come from just one donor, D’Aprile said. “We have to attract more”.
(AIM)
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