The 15,000-km journey: how WFP navigated closed borders to deliver food to Afghan schoolchildren
Inside a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Abdul Ahad Monib watched as trucks loaded with fortified biscuits slowly backed into unloading bays after weeks on the road.
The convoy’s arrival marked the end of a 15,000-km journey, twice disrupted and with the final leg by road spanning nine countries.
“There was a feeling of relief when we saw the trucks arrive,” says Monib, a WFP Supply Chain and Delivery officer. “We followed every step of the journey closely – every delay, every border crossing, every change of plan.
“At several points, supply chain teams had to completely rethink the route," he adds. "But we all kept focused on the same goal: getting these biscuits as fast as possible to schoolchildren across Afghanistan.”
The marathon voyage, crossing desert, mountains and sea, illustrates the many pitfalls WFP navigates to get food into the hands of hungry people – and how we quickly adapt to shifting circumstances to ensure life-saving cargo reaches its destination as swiftly and cost-effectively as possible.
“WFP moves millions of metric tons of food each year to some of the toughest, most remote places on earth,” says Corinne Fleischer, Director of WFP Supply Chain and Delivery. “When one route closes, or we face an obstacle, we adapt, identify solutions and coordinate – sometimes across multiple borders. Hunger doesn’t wait for routes to reopen.”
A 15,000 km journey to keep children learning
The 397 metric tons of fortified biscuits had left Indonesia’s Surabaya port by boat, sailing to the southern Pakistani port of Karachi. Part of a US$3.5 million contribution from the Government of Indonesia to support WFP school meals in Afghanistan, they will feed 172,000 schoolchildren – offering a key nutritional boost in a country where severe hunger is rife.
From Karachi, the shipment was originally meant to travel up to 7,000 km through Pakistan before crossing into Afghanistan by road.
But then the border closed, amid rising tensions between the two countries – forcing WFP to quickly find another route. Every day of delay threatened a critical delivery of nutritional support for Afghan children who rely on school meals to stay healthy, focused and in class.
So WFP adapted.
When borders close, food must find another way
Waiting indefinitely for the border to reopen was not an option. WFP shipping officers rerouted the cargo to the port of Jebel Ali in Dubai, with a plan to ship it across the Persian Gulf to Iran, and then move it on by road.
But as instability spread across the Middle East, effectively closing the critical Strait of Hormuz, WFP was forced to rethink the plan once more. Inside WFP operations rooms, logisticians went back to basics, poring over maps to see whether the region’s geography might offer a solution. It did – an entirely new land corridor from Dubai to landlocked Afghanistan across the Caucasus. While it was a longer, costlier, more complex route, it was also the only remaining option.
The biscuits were safely offloaded at the WFP-managed UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Dubai – a humanitarian logistics hub for storing and dispatching relief supplies. This helped avoid costly storage fees and gave teams time to prepare for the onward route.
Rerouting life-saving supplies across the region
One overcast morning, a 21-truck convoy rumbled out of Dubai and headed out along the desert highways of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, up through Jordan, Syria, Türkiye and Georgia before boarding a ferry in Baku, Azerbaijan, and crossing the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan. Days later, the trucks crossed into Afghanistan through the remote Torghundi border crossing, before continuing on to Kabul.
Every country the convoy passed through required new customs clearances, security assessments, transport permits and coordination across seven borders.
Along the route, truck drivers faced long waits at border crossings, signing paperwork and snatching moments of sleep beneath open skies.
“I remember the ferry line at Alat port [Baku] where hundreds of trucks were waiting to cross – the line was close to 30 km long,” says Hüseyin Sarraç Ulus, a Turkish truck driver who made the roughly 3,000 km journey from Dubai to the Caspian Sea.
“We drove around 11 hours a day and slept in the truck cabin most nights – it was not always comfortable but we are used to it," he recalls. "We ate simple food like soup, bread, rice and tea. But it felt good. Knowing the cargo was helping children made me proud to be part of the journey.”
“This operation showed exactly what WFP’s supply chain is built for,” says WFP's Fleischer.
Fortified biscuits: small items with a critical impact
For Afghan schoolchildren, the fortified biscuits distributed through WFP’s school meals programme are far more than a snack: in communities facing hunger and poverty, they are often the most nutritious food children receive all day. Last year, WFP supported 1.3 million schoolchildren through school meal activities across eight highly food-insecure provinces in Afghanistan.
Malnutrition will touch nearly 4.9 million women and children in 2026 – a new high. Afghanistan is facing mounting pressure due to repeated floods and earthquakes, declining humanitarian funding and the two crises along its borders. WFP's support provides a critical lifeline.
After weeks on the road, the biscuits reached the hands of girls and boys across schools in Ghor, Nuristan and Paktika provinces, in central, northeastern and eastern Afghanistan, respectively.
“For the children, it’s a packet of biscuits that help them stay healthy,” says Monib. “For us, it’s a logistics feat. No one sees the thousands of kilometres, the delays or the rerouting behind each packet. But that’s exactly the point – whatever the obstacles, WFP delivers.”