World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. (..) Most of these land acquisitions are in Africa, where some governments lease cropland for less than $1 per acre per year. Among the principal destinations were Ethiopia and Sudan, countries where millions of people are being sustained with food from the U.N. World Food Program.

It's probably not the homecoming most south Sudanese were expecting. (..)The World Food Programme has been feeding more than 70,000 returnees since December, giving them a three-month supply of food based on the assumption that they will be able to feed themselves after that.

The United Nations said today that humanitarian operations in Sudan are under way, focusing on identifying the location of the tens of thousands of civilians uprooted by the recent clashes in the disputed town of Abyei and responding to critical relief needs. (..) For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP), which was supporting 62,000 people before the clashes began, has started distributing food to some 6,000 newly-uprooted people.

As the rainy season begins in this tiny rural village in southern Sudan, thousands of frightened women and children are seeking cover under makeshift shelters of bedsheets and rugs, strung up between tree branches lodged in the mud. (..) In the days since the Sudanese government seized Abyei, pro-northern militias ransacked stockpiles of food at a World Food Program warehouse, which the United Nations says could have fed 50,000 people for three months.

Seasonal rains are among several factors to have exacerbated the crisis sparked by the sudden flight of tens of thousands of civilians from the disputed Sudanese region of Abyei, say aid workers, who point to both short- and long-term repercussions. “Most of the roads in Southern Sudan are not passable during the rains and so that will make the movement of food difficult,” World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Amor Almagro told IRIN.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has called for the release of the three Bulgarian air crew who were abducted in Sudan on January 13 2011. (..) Ashton said that the EU would continue with its efforts to ensure that the Sudanese government would help to secure the release of the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian air crew abducted in Darfur were all working for the World Food Organisation.

Prices of basic goods in south Sudan have surged after a cargo "blockade" by former civil war enemies in the north, officials said on Thursday. (..) "WFP was also affected as we had trucks and barges temporarily stranded, but were then given the go ahead by Khartoum to resume our transport to the south," said Leo Van Der Velden, WFP coordinator in the south.

Clashes erupted in Abyei Wednesday between north and south Sudanese troops, the southern army said, just days after a deal to demilitarise the disputed area, and as Khartoum stepped up air strikes in neighbouring South Kordofan. (..) The World Food Programme said the lack of security was preventing it from providing emergency supplies to tens of thousands of people uprooted by the conflict, now thought to number more than 64,000.

The World Food Programme said it will resume food aid to about 240,000 people in the Southern Sudan states of Lakes and Jonglei, a month after government troops confiscated a food shipment to Lakes and a WFP driver was killed in Jonglei.

Southern Sudanese rebels and cattle herders clashed in Warrap state, leaving at least 72 people dead, army spokesman Philip Aguer said. (..) The Rome-based World Food Programme said that it had stopped operating in parts of Jonglei and Lakes states on April 26 after one of its employees was killed and one of its trucks commandeered by the southern army. The shutdown denied food rations to about 235,000 people in the affected areas.