WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME FEEDS AFGHANS AT JALOZAI CAMP

 WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME FEEDS AFGHANS AT JALOZAI CAMP

(Reissued as received.)

ISLAMABAD, 21 May (WFP) -- The World Food Programme today started distributing food supplies to more than 70,000 poor Afghans who have been living in a squalid camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, for the past five months.

“We have been concerned about the destitute Afghans in Jalozai camp for some time now.  This food distribution should ease their situation", WFP Regional Manager Mike Sackett said.

The WFP has been feeding over 65,700 newly arrived Afghan refugees in New Shamshatoo and Akora Khattak camps in Peshawar, where refugees are in a relatively better condition, since the beginning of the year.  In April, the WFP together with Médecins sans Frontières, started to support a feeding scheme for about

200 malnourished children in Jalozai camp, but this week’s food distribution was the first time that the WFP gains enough access to Jalozai.

“In 2001, the WFP is bringing more than 12,000 tons of food to support the poorest Afghan refugees in Shamshatoo and Akora Khattak at a total cost of

$4.87 million.  But this commitment could increase if conditions permit in Jalozai camp”, Rahman Chowdhury, the WFP Programme Adviser, said.

The fighting in northeast Afghanistan since September 2000 has displaced tens of thousands of civilians, especially in Takhar Province, sending thousands of refugees into neighbouring Pakistan.  Other Afghans fleeing the drought joined in and Pakistan has received more than 170,000 Afghans during the past seven months.  Pakistan is already host to more than 1.3 million Afghan refugees.

The WFP has been working hard to stabilize the drought-hit communities inside Afghanistan and avert a massive migration of people to Afghan cities and neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and Iran.  It is currently providing food to about 3 million Afghans on a regular basis, more than twice the number it was assisting a year ago.

“We are distributing more than 20,000 tons of food in Afghanistan each month”, said Sackett.  The WFP plans to increase this amount further, he added. Last year, the WFP provided 161,000 tons of food to 3.2 million people in Afghanistan and this year it plans to help 3.8 million poor Afghans get their daily food requirements.

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                                                                          WFP/1060

                                                            21 May 2001

It is expected that under the deteriorating conditions faced by households in some of the hardest hit areas of Afghanistan more people will be forced to move out in order to survive.  So far, the United Nations estimates that more than 700,000 Afghans have been displaced from their place of origin.  About 500,000 of them have moved to urban centres within Afghanistan, especially the northwestern city of Herat, where six camps are housing some 150,000 displaced people.

The WFP is the United Nations’ front-line agency in the fight against global hunger. In 2000, the WFP fed more than 83 million people in 83 countries including most of the world’s refugees and internally displaced people.  As the largest provider of nutritious meals to poor school children, the WFP has launched a global campaign aimed at ensuring the world’s 300 million undernourished children are educated.

For more information please contact:  Rahman Chowdhury, WFP Programme Adviser, Tel. +9251 2827 150 Ext 2439, Mobile +92320 4506 326, e-mail rahman.chowdhury@wfp.org; Khaled Mansour, WFP Information Officer, +9251 227 1265, +92300 850 0989, e-mail khaled.mansour@wfp.org; or Abby Spring, 212/963-5196,

e-mail spring@un.org

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