WFP to cut food rations to 500,000 refugees due to dearth of funds

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says 500,000 refugees mainly from Somalia and South Sudan, living in Dadaab and Kakuma camps northern Kenya, will receive reduced rations from Saturday, Nov. 15.

Mr Paul Turnbull, the WFP Deputy Country Director for Kenya, said in a statement issued on Friday, that 50 per cent ration cut came as the WFP struggled to raise 38 million dollars to cover its refugee operations for the next six months.

This, Turnbull said, include 15.5 million dollars that was urgently required to address food needs through January 2015.

“Cutting rations is the last resort and we are doing it to manage the limited food we currently have over the next 10 weeks, as we continue to appeal to the international community to assist.

“’WFP has done everything it can to avoid reducing rations, using all means at our disposal to cover critical funding gaps.’’

Each month, he said, WFP distributes 9,700 tonnes  of food for some 500,000 refugees in Kenya, at a cost of almost 10 million dollars.

Refugees, the director said, were being given a food ration of cereals, pulses, vegetable oil, a nutrient-rich maize-soya blend and salt, providing 2,100 kilocalories per person per day.

However, he said, from mid-November, the refugees will receive a food ration equivalent to 1,050 kilocalories per day.

In the statement, Ms Valerie Guarnieri, WFP’s Regional Director for East and Central Africa, was quoted as saying that WFP depended entirely on voluntary contributions from donors who generously supported food assistance for refugees.

She said “with competing humanitarian needs around the world, we realise budgets are tight, but nonetheless, we must call for more funding so that we can work with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to meet the urgent needs of vulnerable people who have no other means of support.’’

WFP, she said, expected to distribute half-rations until the end of January 2015, when a shipment of food assistance donated by the U.S., sufficient for six weeks’ food requirements, was expected to arrive.

In 2014, the WFP said,  international donors contributed 68.8 million dollars to support food assistance for refugees in Kenya.

WFP also provides specialised fortified foods to young children, as well as to pregnant women and nursing mothers, to stave off malnutrition.

In addition, primary and pre-primary schoolchildren receive porridge, which helps them concentrate on their classes and acts as incentive to their families to send them to school.

So far, these activities are not expected to be affected by the cuts, the agency said. (NAN)