Thursday, January 22, 2009
Four World Food Programme (WFP) employees have been killed in the war-torn Horn of Africa country since August last year, two of them this month.
"We will not stop food distribution yet but (sic). We will distribute all the food that we currently have inside Somalia" or on its way there, WFP chief Peter Goossens said at a press conference in Nairobi.
The WFP said it was in the process of delivering 57,000 metric tonnes of food in southern and central Somalia, enough to feed 2.5 million people for one to two months.
"That is basically it, until and unless, and by area, and by community, and that's going to be a huge exercise, we get positive assurances from the population, the authorites, whoever would be in control of such areas that our staff can safely function in these areas," he added.
"And then we will reengage in those areas. But if we don't get those assurances, we will not," Goosens said.
According to the United Nations, 3.25 million Somalis -- close to half the country's population -- need humanitarian assistance.
On January 6, masked gunmen shot down a 44-year-old Somali working for the WFP as he monitored a school feeding programme in the Gedo region.
Two days later, gunmen shot dead a 49-year-old Somali supervising food distribution in a camp for displaced people in northwestern Somalia.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Source: AFP, Jan 22, 2009