World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Collecting firewood for cooking is not only a burdensome task for vulnerable women, it also has an adverse impact on the environment. Using fuel-efficient stoves is one way to combat this issue.  On a visit to one of the homes of former IDPs in the northern part of the country,  we witness how one little stove has entirely changed a family's quality of life.

Torrential rains across much of eastern Sri Lanka in recent days have unleashed floodwaters affecting around one million people and prompting WFP to launch an immediate emergency operation to provide life-saving food rations to the worst-affected areas.

Land mines are a constant threat in many parts of Sri Lanka in the wake of long years of civil strife. Parathachchelvi Navarajan says that a fuel-efficient stove, given to her by WFP, has reduced the amount of fuel she needs to cook and therefore lessened the risk that she will step on a mine when searching for firewood.

WFP and its humanitarian partners recently provided another lifeline to tens of thousands of people who have fled the recent conflict in Sri Lanka. Thanks to a coordinated initiative between the government, NGOs and the business community, three of Sri Lanka’s largest bakeries baked fresh bread for the hungry displaced using ingredients from WFP’s food basket.

In recent days, it has become easier for WFP staff to monitor food distributions in the government-run camps housing people displaced by the last wave of fighting in Sri Lanka. Our country director, Adnan Khan, explains that WFP is now feeding 290,000 people in the camps.

WFP is boosting food stocks and supplying nutritionally-rich food for women and children in order to meet the needs of IDPs displaced in the final days of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war. UN Chief Visits Sri Lanka

While continuing to feed almost 200,000 people displaced by fighting in northern Sri Lanka, WFP has now started providing cooked meals to the thousands of Sri Lankans who are reaching the town of Omanthai from the conflict zone.

WFP is now feeding nearly 190,000 internally displaced persons in the northern Vavuniya and Jaffna districts. An estimated 120,000 of these IDPs arrived over the last ten days after escaping the conflict zone in Mallaitivu.

WFP has pre-positioned food in the northern Vavuniya district of Sri Lanka to meet the needs of the tens of thousands of people who are fleeing the ‘safe zone’ along the north eastern coast of Mullaitivu.

“This is the largest shipment we have sent and it comes at a crucial time for these people.” -- Adnan Khan, WFP Representative and Country Director in Sri Lanka.