Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from insurgency-hit Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, need food assistance urgently, officials told IRIN. (..) The UN World Food Programme (WFP), meanwhile, said it assisted 27,000 IDPs in Helmand Province in 2010 and that an inter-agency assessment was ongoing to gauge needs. WFP and other UN agencies are not present in Helmand due to security restrictions but implement aid projects through local NGOs and government bodies.