UN News Centre
March 11 2005

Up to 600,000 rural Azerbaijanis face food shortages, UN food agency
warns

11 March 2005 – From 400,000 to 600,000 rural Azerbaijanis face food
shortages and nearly 300,000 of the 1 million people displaced by the
conflict with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh
are likely to continue to rely on food aid for the foreseeable
future, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

“In the absence of food assistance, two thirds of this displaced
population would become food insecure very quickly,” said WFP’s
Regional Director for the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern
Europe, Amir Abdulla. A whole generation of children could be
affected by malnutrition.

The warning comes in the first “Food Security and Nutrition Report”
on Azerbaijan, where WFP faces a shortfall of about $4 million out of
an appeal for $21 million for a three-year humanitarian operation
that started in January 2003.

For over a decade, WFP has been assisting people displaced by the
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, when Azerbaijanis fled the region now
occupied by Armenia to other parts of Azerbaijan, where many still
live in sub-standard conditions and have severely limited assets.

An overwhelming majority are heavily dependent on the Government’s $6
monthly allowance and nearly 90 per cent purchase food on credit or
borrowed money. Despite receiving food aid, the bulk of additional
expenditures are on food or medical care and more than half of the
families have at least one member suffering from a chronic illness,
the report said.

The survey found that children in rural area were likely to be born
malnourished, with about 1 in 5 described as being “smaller than
normal” or “very small” at birth. More than 30 per cent of the rural
children under the age of five were stunted.

Micronutrient deficiencies are also problematic in rural areas with
25 per cent of the households reporting goitre problems among family
members and only two-thirds of the sample households adequately using
iodized salt.

“It’s critical for these children to have access to better foods
otherwise malnutrition could affect a whole generation,” WFP Country
Director Rahman Chowdhury said.