Darfur food aid cut by half

The UN is halving emergency food supplies for up to three million people in Darfur because of attacks on its lorries.

The organisation’s World Food Program said today 60 vehicles have been hijacked in the western Sudanese province since the start of the year, with 39 still missing and 26 drivers unaccounted for. One driver was killed in Darfur last month.

“Attacks on the WFP food pipeline are an attack on the most vulnerable people in Darfur,” director Josette Sheeran said.

“With up to three million people depending on us for their survival in the upcoming rainy season, keeping WFP’s supply line open is a matter of life and death,” she added.

“We call on all parties to protect the access to food.”

More than 200,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict and more than two million are displaced from their homes, according to UN figures. Fighting has raged since 2003 when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum.

The WFP said lorries should be delivering 1,800 tons of food daily to Darfur this time of year to supply warehouses ahead of the rainy season which begins next month. But deliveries have dropped to less than 900 tons per day.

“The Government of Sudan provides police escorts for convoys on the main routes, but unfortunately the frequency is not enough to maintain the food pipeline,” said a WFP spokesman in Sudan.

A joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force was launched in January to try to stem the violence in Darfur. But the group only has about 9,000 troops and police on the ground out of a total of 26,000 that had been intended.