WFP BEGINS EMERGENCY AIRLIFT IN LIBERIA

25 March 1996

Press Release
WFP/1031

WFP BEGINS EMERGENCY AIRLIFT IN LIBERIA

19960325 ROME, 25 March (WFP) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) today began airlifting emergency food to some 22,000 women, children and old people trapped by fighting in camps in western Liberia.

Almost 100,000 refugees and displaced people have been trapped without food in Cape Mount County, on Liberia's border with Sierra Leone, since fierce fighting closed the highway to the area in mid-December 1995.

WFP officials in Monrovia said they were getting reports that five people a day were dying of malnutrition in Cape Mount County.

"These people have been trapped since December", said Tarek El Guindi, WFP County Director in Liberia. "There's no food there at all, and the conditions in the shelter camps are wretched."

The Programme, the food aid arm of the United Nations, plans to airlift 60 metric tons of assorted food commodities for the 22,000 people deemed most at risk in the sprawling centres in western Liberia. It will deliver the airlifted food using two helicopters donated by the United States to the West African peace-keeping forces operating in Liberia. The operation is expected to take about four days.

The Programme's last food convoy to Cape Mount was on 14 December 1995, before fighting closed the aid convoy route.

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