Jonglei: WFP begins food delivery in Twic East
November 23, 14 (BOR) – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said it was providing humanitarian assistance to at least 39,000 displaced people in South Sudan’s Jonglei state county of Twic East.
“WFP has started operation to provide food assistance to Twic East, and is taking place at Mabior. We are doing it through our partners, SAADO [Smile Again Africa for Development Organisation] and JAM [Joint Aid Mission]. We started with air lift, which brings food commodities, which are non-droppable,” he said on Sunday.
SAADO and JAM are WFP partners and assist the latter in distributing food to those registered by the world’s largest humanitarian agency.
“Once the right figure is known,” says Fominyen, “then we shall do the airdrop to bring the adequate food which is needed”.
WFP has been at the forefront of providing food assistance to the population in both government and rebels controlled areas of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states since conflict broke out last year.
About 1.5 million people, WFP says, have so far been reached in its operation across the country, but more food was still needed.
“The need is big and huge, so we have to serve as many people as have we can. What we want is to reach as many people as possible where people have been affected by the conflict,” said Fominyen.
He further disclosed WFP had sent nines teams to the country’s three states to assist nearly 200,000 people in different areas with food aid.
“We have served thousands and thousands of people. There are nine teams in various places in the conflict-affected states. I am talking about Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states, there are nine teams on the ground and they are serving close to 200,000 people just for this week. So you can imagine how many thousands of people we had served since the crisis started,” stressed Fominyen.
Twic East commissioner, Dau Akoi, said arrival of WFP assistance was good news for his people who had waited for nearly four months.
He said the county witnessed huge influx of returnees from Lakes states after they were displaced by last year’s outbreak of conflict.
“The number of returnees from Mingkaman is high, including cattle keepers who crossed with their cattle in December and January, have started coming back last week. This increased the population”, stressed Dau.
With nearly 37,000 people from neighbouring Duk county said to have fled to Twic East, Dau says needs of the population could exceed WFP estimates.
(ST).