With million refugees worldwide threatened by hunger, UN appeals for urgent aid

UN News Centre
Dec 21 2004

21 December 2004 – With more than a million refugees worldwide
threatened with hunger and malnutrition in the New Year due to
food shortages, the United Nations today launched an urgent appeal
for international aid, especially for Africa where some woman have
resorted to prostitution to feed their children.

Several hundred thousand refugees are already struggling to survive
on drastically reduced food rations, the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) said.

“In this holiday season, we want to draw attention to their plight,
which will only worsen unless the [UN] World Food Programme (WFP),
UNHCR’s partner agency, urgently receives the funding it is seeking,”
agency spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva. “We
urgently appeal to donor countries worldwide to come to their help
by generously supporting WFP’s appeals.”

He voiced particular concern over Africa. In Zambia, distribution of
lentils and cereals, two essential food products, has been halved
in the past two months. Overall food rations will soon have to be
cut by half, putting 87,000 of Zambia’s 191,000 refugees at risk
of malnutrition.

“Already, we are hearing reports of refugee women resorting to
prostitution to support themselves and their children,” Mr. Redmond
said. Field offices also report there has been a marked increase in
children dropping out of school, presumably to help their families
find food.

In Tanzania, daily rations of lentils and of maize, the most important
staple in the refugees’ diet, were reduced by 25 per cent in 13 camps
in October. A joint UNHCR-WFP mission in November found that the rate
of malnutrition among some 400,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees
in Tanzanian camps is on the rise.

Malnutrition also threatens some 118,000 refugees in Ethiopia, and
another 224,000 in Kenya. Both countries face imminent cuts unless
there are immediate donations of cash or food commodities. In the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), WFP says it will need to
make 30 per cent cuts in food rations from January, with adverse
consequences for thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs)
and refugees.

Africa is not the only continent facing a breakdown in the food
pipeline. IDPs in Azerbaijan face a complete cut in food aid in
the New Year. Rations for 140,000 Azerbaijanis displaced by the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia more than a decade ago were
halved last month, but food stocks are so low that more drastic
measures will be needed soon.

And the WFP yesterday launched a $1.2 million appeal to cover the
immediate needs of 350,000 IDPs in Colombia, civilian victims of
decades of military strife. To date, the agency’s current 18-month
relief operation, which started in October 2003, has received $14.3
million and needs the additional funds to tide it over through March.

In a related development the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the European Commission today announced a new €15 million (euro)
partnership programme to improve the ability of decision makers to
target food insecure and vulnerable people and take effective action
to reduce hunger.

The three-year project covers 20 countries representing three very
different food insecurity situations. Some, such as Eritrea and
the DRC, are in the grip of protracted crisis or conflict. Others,
such as Laos and Malawi, suffer chronic, structural food insecurity,
while the third group, such as Tajikistan and Georgia, are making the
difficult transition from a centrally planned to a free market economy.

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