US aid shipment heads from Libya to Sudan’s Darfur

BENGHAZI, Libya, Nov 6 (AFP) — Trucks were on Saturday to start conveying a 6,500-tonne US shipment of food and medical supplies from Libya to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, according to a World Food Programme (WFP) official.

A United Nations cargo plane drops humanitarian aid packages on a prefixed site miles away from the western town of El-Geneina, close to the border with Chad.

A US ship docked in the Libyan port of Benghazi on Friday, the first to do so since the two countries restored diplomatic relations in June and the US lifted economic sanctions on Tripoli.

The aid supplies are intended to feed some 200,000 refugees in the western Sudanese region, according to the WFP which is supervising the operation.

The WFP reached an agreement with Libya in July to transport aid shipments overland to Sudan in order to assist the estimated 1.5 million people who have been diplaced by 20 months of fighting in Darfur.

Previously, aid had to be delivered via the Cameroonian port of Douala, but the rainy season has hampered overland travel from the region.

Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur since two armed groups began a rebellion in February 2003, prompting a bloody response from a militia backed by Sudan’s government.