Report No. 24 of 1999 Date: 18 June 1999
This report includes: A) FR Yugoslavia - Kosovo crisis B) Tajikistan C) Indonesia D) Somalia E) Sudan F) Central Africa: Congo/Brazzaville and Democratic Republic of Congo.
>From Manuel Aranda da Silva, Chief, Technical Support Service. Available on the Internet on the WFP Home Page at http://www.wfp.org/ or by electronic mail from Deborah.Hicks@wfp.org or Natasha.Nadazdin@wfp.org (fax 39 06 6513 2854). For information on resources, donors are requested to contact Aleesa.Blum@wfp.org or Marius.deGaayFortman@wfp.org at WFP Rome, telephone 39 06 6513 2004 or 06 6513 2250. The address of WFP is Via Cesare Giulio Viola 68, Parco dei Medici, 00148 Rome, Italy.
This issue of the Emergency Report was prepared by Natasha Nadazdin.
PART I - HIGHLIGHTS (Details below in Part II)
A. FR YUGOSLAVIA AND REGION - KOSOVO CRISIS
1. Update - information as of 18 June a) Kosovo Albanians begin spontaneous return to Kosovo; security inside Kosovo still a concern. b) On 13 June, WFP starts sending daily convoys from Albania and FYRoM to Kosovo, with HDRs, wheat flour, canned food, pulses, vegetable oil and bread. c) UNHCR estimates some 20,000 Serbs from Kosovo have crossed to southern Serbia over the past three days; WFP to distribute food aid to the new IDPs through Serbian Red Cross and NGOs. d) WFP office re-opens in Belgrade as first step towards resumption of its humanitarian operations in Serbia. e) WFP in Skopje, Tirana, Podgorica and Pristina is chairing regular food coordination meetings with Governments, international agencies and NGOs.
B. TAJIKISTAN
1. Update - information as of 7 June a) Serious shortfalls in food supplies for WFP operation in Tajikistan; unless new donor contributions are received, assistance to over 400,000 vulnerable persons to be suspended in mid-July; to date only 4 percent of the USD 28 million requested under the Consolidated Appeal has been pledged by donors; WFP urges further contributions.
C. INDONESIA
1. Update - information as of 14 June a) WFP emergency operation in Indonesia (EMOP 6006) extended until June 2000; total WFP cost is now USD 135.8 million. b) Originally meant for rural areas, the operation now expands to urban areas (greater Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung and Yogykarta); the operation is to provide take-home rations for school children in the cities and food-for-work activities in both rural and urban areas. c) WFP also supports Government subsidized rice programme.
D. SOMALIA
1. Update - information as of 18 June a) Two WFP shipments of some 7,600 tons of food aid for southern Somalia diverted due to fighting in-land. b) As a result, food deliveries in central and southern Somalia to be reduced; operations in Bay, Bakool, Gedo and Lower Shabelle currently on hold. c) FSAU reports increasingly precarious food security in southern Somalia, due to erratic rainfall, poor livestock condition and continuing conflict.
E. SUDAN
1. Update - information as of 16 June a) In May, WFP provided 12,600 tons of food for 1.5 million beneficiaries across Sudan to prepare them for difficult pre-harvest period. b) Insufficient security in Unity/Upper Nile/Jonglei and in parts of Bahr el-Ghazal impedes WFP operations; road deliveries from Lokichoggio to Eastern Equatoria suspended recently due to fighting; in northern Sudan, insecurity on the road from Kassala to Port Sudan results in delays in food transport from Port Sudan to Khartoum; distributions in IDP camps in Transitional Zone suspended. c) In May, new 20,000 IDPs arrive in Aweil East County; nutritional situation in these areas remains a concern, despite recent distributions.
F. CENTRAL AND EAST AFRICA: CONGO/BRAZZAVILLE AND D.R. CONGO
1. Congo/Brazzaville a) WFP appeals to donors for additional resources for emergency operation to provide assistance to war-affected people in Brazzaville; operation requires close to 3,500 tons of food per month to assist 200,000 persons.
2. Democratic Republic of Congo a) Government, UN and bilateral donors visit camps for displaced persons in Lubumbashi, Katanga province, where 6,000 IDPs currently hosted. b) Insecurity in eastern D.R. Congo persists; WFP continues to assist IDPs and malnourished in Goma and Bukavu.
PART II - DETAILS
A. FR YUGOSLAVIA AND REGION - KOSOVO CRISIS
1. UPDATE - information as of 18 June
1.1 Kosovo (FRY):
a) Kosovo Albanians who were forced to flee their homeland during the conflict have started to spontaneously return from Albania and FYR of Macedonia. This followed the 9 June signing of a military arrangement to implement the peace agreement, and the arrival of the NATO-led international peace keeping force for Kosovo (KFOR). UNHCR estimates as of 18 June that in the last three days some 50,000 Kosovo Albanians, previously refugees in the neighbouring countries, returned to Kosovo, and more are expected. Security remains a concern as roads and dwellings are believed to be mined and/or booby-trapped and organized repatriation has not started. Some of the spontaneous returnees are heads of families who want to assess the damage to their homes before bringing their families. KFOR reports that there are major movements of populations that had been displaced by the fighting towards urban areas.
b) On 13 June, a 50-vehicle humanitarian convoy bringing assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kosovo left Skopje for Pristina. Five WFP trucks, each with 25 tons of food commodities, were part of the convoy. Three trucks carried humanitarian daily rations (HDRs) and two carried wheat flour. Also on 13 June, a second convoy from Kukes (Albania) arrived in Prizren, Kosovo, carrying, among other commodities, seven tons of WFP bread. On 14 June, WFP delivered 16 tons of wheat flour and 1.2 tons of oil to Glogovac. On 16 June, the following commodities were delivered to Kosovo: 322 tons of wheat flour, 20 tons of pulses, 21 tons of vegetable oil, 111 tons of HDRs, and 7,000 loaves of bread. On 17 June, eight WFP trucks delivered more than 55 tons of HDRs, high protein biscuits and canned fish from Kukes to Prizren. The same day, seven WFP trucks delivered 66 tons of wheat flour and 20 tons of split peas to Prizren from Skopje. On 18 June WFP dispatched its first convoy from Skopje to Pristina carrying 105 tons of wheat flour. A trip to Peje (far western corner of Kosovo) is planned for 18 June to identify food needs in the enclave.
c) The WFP Kosovo office in Pristina and the WFP sub-office in Prizren both have new premises. WFP in Prizren has a storage capacity of 1,000 tons, and sufficient space to erect additional temporary warehouses.
1.2 UNHCR reports that an estimated 20,000 Serbs from Kosovo have crossed to southern Serbia over the past three days, and the influx continues. WFP has some 120 tons of commodities in southern Serbia, which will be distributed to the IDPs through the Serbian Red Cross and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the region. With the return of refugees and IDPs to Kosovo, some of the Kosovo Serbs who are leaving Kosovo are moving to Montenegro.
1.3 WFP has re-opened its office in Belgrade as the first step of the resumption of its operations in Serbia.
1.4 The ports of Durres and Thessaloniki are currently being used to receive WFP food deliveries for refugees in Albania and FYR of Macedonia and IDPs in Kosovo. An additional 5,000 tons of wheat flour has been released to WFP and is now in Thessaloniki port. In Montenegro, wheat grain stocks from Bar are transported by rail to the Spuz mill, and flour is used for bread production. WFP has secured about 60,000 tons warehouse capacity throughout the region, sufficient to meet the commodity storage needs in the area. WFP is mobilizing additional temporary storage space to ensure sufficient storage capacity. Current WFP stocks in the region stand at 33,500 tons of food commodities.
1.5 WFP offices in Skopje (FYRoM), Tirana (Albania), Podgorica (Montenegro) and Pristina (Kosovo, FRY) chair food coordination meetings and undertake overall food coordination in collaboration with the Governments, international agencies and NGOs.
B. TAJIKISTAN
1. UPDATE - information as of 7 June
1.1 WFP is experiencing serious shortfalls in food supplies for its activities in Tajikistan. Food rations for many of the vulnerable group feeding and food-for-work programmes have already been halved and food stocks in the country are only sufficient to cover a month's activities. Unless new contributions are received from donors, assistance will have to be suspended in mid-July further increasing the suffering of those Tajiks depending on food assistance. WFP's target group includes over 400,000 vulnerable people - mainly woman-headed households, families without income-earner, single old age pensioners, invalids and orphans.
1.2 International donor support for Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet Union countries, has decreased to a trickle, and as of end-May only 4 percent of the USD 28 million requested under the 1999 Consolidated Appeal had been pledged. As a result, feeding programmes for over a million people have received virtually no funding and basic health needs cannot be addressed. Aid agencies in the country warn that without more donor support for humanitarian activities the success of the peace process is in jeopardy.
C. INDONESIA
1. UPDATE - information as of 14 June
1.1 WFP has extended its ongoing emergency operation in Indonesia (EMOP 6006) until June 2000. Excluding the Government's contribution, the total WFP cost is now USD 135.8 million, against the initial requirement of USD 88 million. Originally implemented in rural areas in the eastern part of the country affected by drought, the operation will now expand to urban areas, mainly greater Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung and Yogykarta, where there are over 4 million out of the total 6 million beneficiaries.
1.2 In the cities, under the new EMOP extension, WFP will provide support to children who will receive a take-home ration. This is meant to encourage their parents to keep them in school, as school attendance will be seen as a way to supplement the family income.
1.3 WFP food-for-work activities will be implemented in the five cities as well as in rural areas that have either chronic food shortages, a high number of landless farmers or returnees following either civil strife or economic difficulties in the cities.
1.4 Under this emergency operation, WFP will provide support to the Government's subsidized rice programme which will enable families to purchase 20 kilograms of rice a month at subsidized prices. Proceeds will be used to procure rice for activities in other programmes.
1.5 Other activities included in the new EMOP extension are support to orphanages and shelters for street children, distribution of mineral and vitamin enriched blended food to pregnant and nursing mothers and children under five, support to IDPs and victims of religious and ethnic strife.
D. SOMALIA
1. UPDATE - information as of 18 June
1.1 As a precautionary measure, following heavy fighting farther in-land, on 9 June WFP diverted two ships carrying 7,600 tons of food aid for southern Somalia. The M/V Gimo 1, which arrived in Merca (100 km south of Mogadishu) on 4 June carrying 5,000 tons of maize unloaded about half its cargo before leaving for the Kenyan port of Mombasa. The second WFP chartered ship, the M/V Rosen, en route from Mombasa with 600 tons of food for El Ma'an (15km north of Mogadishu), and 2,000 tons for the northern ports of Berbera and Bosasso, was instructed to bypass the beach port of El Ma'an and proceed to Berbera and Bosasso.
1.2 Food deliveries in central and southern Somalia will therefore be reduced during the coming months. Operations in Bay, Bakool, Gedo and Lower Shabelle regions of southern Somalia are currently on hold; they will be resumed security situation permitting.
1.3 The food security outlook for southern Somalia is increasingly precarious, as a result of erratic rainfall, poor livestock condition and continuing conflict. The recent Gu crop establishment assessment carried out by the Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) states that total area planted to cereals is 320,000 hectares, which is 24 percent below the 1997 level and 14 percent below the post-war average. Tentatively, production is projected at 168,300 tons, or 30 percent below the 1997 level and 11 percent below the post-war average.
1.4 The agricultural belt in Somaliland is also experiencing a poor agricultural season.
E. SUDAN
1. UPDATE - information as of 16 June
1.1 June marks the beginning of the most difficult stretch of the traditional hunger gap in Sudan, when food supply is low and WFP-assisted beneficiaries are most vulnerable. In order to prepare for this difficult pre-harvest period, WFP provided food to nearly 1.5 million beneficiaries across Sudan and distributed some 12,600 tons of food in May.
1.2 WFP emergency operations in Sudan have been impeded by the lack of security in the Unity/Upper Nile/Jonglei areas, and in parts of Bahr el-Ghazal. Road deliveries from Lokichoggio to Eastern Equatoria have been suspended recently due to fighting in the area.
1.3 In northern Sudan, adverse security conditions on the road from Kassala to Port Sudan have resulted in delays in food transport from Port Sudan to Khartoum. Ethnic clashes in the Transitional Zone (near the border of South Darfur and northern Bahr el-Ghazal) resulted in suspension of the May food distributions in IDP camps in the area.
1.4 WFP continues to assess the food security situation in Sudan, most often in collaboration with other agencies. Among the areas assessed in May, WFP staff from the southern and northern sectors conducted needs assessments, together with UNICEF staff, along the Juba river corridor. Unfortunately, the exercise was suspended following the attack on the WFP river pusher on 18 May.
1.5 Overall nutritional conditions have continued to improve in many areas. However, recent nutritional surveys in Aweil East and West (in Bahr el-Ghazal) indicate that the situation in these areas remains of concern, despite recent large-scale food distributions. This area continues to receive new IDPs on a daily basis. In May, some 20,000 IDPs arrived in Aweil East County, further straining the local food situation. Several NGOs continue to support supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes in these areas, seeking to avert a further deterioration of the situation.
F. CENTRAL AFRICA: CONGO/BRAZZAVILLE AND D.R. CONGO
1. CONGO/BRAZZAVILLE
1.1 Inadequate resourcing continues to hamper emergency assistance to war-affected people in Brazzaville. This operation requires close to 3,500 tons of food per month to assist 200,000 persons. WFP has appealed to donors for urgent contributions to assist these people, who are emerging from their hideouts in dense forest where they hid for almost ten months.
1.2 Between 7 - 13 June, a total of 13 metric tons of WFP food commodities was distributed to 8,600 persons in Brazzaville.
2. D.R. CONGO
2.1 A joint assessment mission including representatives from the Government, UN and bilateral donors visited camps for displaced persons in Lubumbashi, Katanga province. Some 6,000 people are currently hosted in the town. Local Government authorities have now made available a site for the establishment of a camp.
2.2 While security incidents are still prevalent in eastern D.R. Congo, WFP continues to assist displaced persons in Goma and malnourished people in both Goma and Bukavu.
2.3 WFP delivered another 193 tons of food to Bas-Congo, Katanga and Bukavu to assist some 15,000 beneficiaries, including Angolan refugees and displaced Congolese in the week of 7 June.
Note: all tonnage figures in report above refer to metric tons
(End WFP Emergency Report No. 24 of 1999 - June 18, 1999)
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