World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Somali refugees escaping the conflict between the Union of Islamic Courts and the Transitional Federal Government have pushed the number of refugees in Kenya to the highest level in a decade, threatening to exhaust food aid stocks unless urgent donations are made, WFP said today.

Recent outbreaks of fighting and the worst drought in a decade have pushed many people in Somalia to their limit, creating the bleakest malnutrition situation in years, WFP and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have warned.

A ship chartered by WFP docked yesterday in Mogadishu – the agency’s first delivery in the capital’s port in more than a decade.

Following a fatal shooting at a food distribution in southern Somalia, WFP appeals to leaders and militias throughout Somalia to provide access and protection to humanitarian agencies.

As a result of insufficient funding, WFP has been forced to reduce food aid rations to some 230,000 Somali and Sudanese refugees living in two camps in remote areas in northeast Kenya.

As the media and the humanitarian community focus on the spreading drought in the Horn of Africa, WFP is deeply concerned that more attention is needed to highlight the persistent problems faced by the world’s refugees – most of them in Africa.

WFP today strongly condemned the hijacking of a food aid ship Wednesday afternoon by unidentified gunmen at the port of Merka, 100 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu.