World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

The top U.N. humanitarian official has visited Sudan to discuss a growing crisis in two southern states where Khartoum has banned foreign aid groups. Valerie Amos says she has reports that food insecurity and malnutrition have reached "alarming" levels in parts of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states. (..) Amos said refugees who have fled to South Sudan and Ethiopia report the humanitarian situation is especially bad in areas held by the rebel SPLM-North group.

Like other oil-rich, water-poor Gulf states, Qatar has been investing in large areas of farmland overseas to ensure access to food supplies. The agricultural arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, Hassad Food, has bought land in Sudan and Australia, and has announced plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on agricultural projects in countries including Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Ukraine.

The presidents of Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan are both predicting the possibility of a new war in an oil-rich region that has seen a spike in cross-border attacks. (..) The World Food Program also suspended activities in the Yida refugee camp – home to more than 20,000 refugees – after two bombs from Sudanese aircraft fell in the camp and three outside of it.

(..) Around the same time the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) contracted the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) to do the same. The two UN agencies were convinced that demining was the only way to cut the costs of transporting aid into southern Sudan from their bases in Lokichoggio, Kenya.

Hawa Jundi sat on the ground outside a makeshift shelter where she and her family now live. (..) The bombing raids have driven humanitarian groups out of the area. On the first trip by journalists into rebel-controlled territory on Oct. 6 to 8, reporters saw abandoned compounds formerly occupied by NGOs and U.N. agencies, including the World Food Programme.

WFP welcomes Brazil and Spain contributions worth US$6 million to provide food for vulnerable people in Sudan

Sudan’s aerial bombardment of its Blue Nile state has driven thousands of people across the border into Ethiopia, a painful return for many to a refugee existence they thought was over when the Sudanese civil war ended six years ago. (..) “Some of the residents have been trapped in the bushes. We expect that when ground troops advance, more will come to Ethiopia,” said Aziku Santus, head of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) sub-office in western Ethiopia.

(..) The two new roads link local farmers to markets marking the beginning of a three-year partnership between the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the South Sudan Ministry of Transport to build a total of 500 kilometres of feeder roads to help boost agriculture development.

(..) Amor Almagro with the UN World Food Program says her agency has fed almost two million people as a result of planting delays. Ms. Almagro says South Sudan has a good supply of fertile land, but only four percent is farmed.

UN agencies and their aid partners on Tuesday appealed for US$ 18.3 million to help tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, who fled to western Ethiopia to escape violence in Sudan’s Blue Nile state. PANA reported that the joint appeal by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and their partner agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is intended to help up to 35,000 refugees.