HUMANITARIAN PARTNERS RACE TO DELIVER AID TO DARFUR AS RAINY SEASON APPROACHES

HUMANITARIAN PARTNERS RACE TO DELIVER AID TO DARFUR AS RAINY SEASON APPROACHES

NEW YORK, 19 May (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) –- As the June rainy season approaches in Darfur, United Nations humanitarian agencies and their non-governmental organization (NGO) partners are racing to bring aid to people in need.

By mid-may, the World Food Programme (WFP) had already distributed 2,200 metric tons of food to some 126,000 beneficiaries in Darfur.  The WFP plans to reach between 450,000 and 500,000 people with food this month.  The United Nations’ food agency seeks to serve a total of 1.2 million beneficiaries at present, but may have to increase that number, depending on ongoing assessments and access conditions.

For its part, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) will expand its distribution of shelter items to include approximately 100,000 beneficiaries before the rainy season.  The non-governmental organization GOAL is distributing some 24,000 blankets.  CARE will help organize trucking of the blankets to GOAL’s distribution points in Kutum.

First distributions of shelter and cooking supplies from a centralized stockpile are scheduled to begin on 27 May when a week-long distribution by Save the Children will target an estimated 37,000 internally displaced person families.  Beneficiaries are targeted through the ongoing food distributions.  Additional shelter/non-food items distribution plans from Concern and Medair is awaited.  Similarly, Médecins sans frontières-France distributed 14,358 blankets alongside their blanket food distribution in Mornei.

In the health sector, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has deployed two nutrition consultants to conduct training and management of acute malnutrition in Darfur.  They will also carry out quality control/monitoring visits to therapeutic feeding sites and provide technical supports to implementing partners.  Also, planning for the measles immunization plan in all three Darfur states has now been finalized.  The campaign is scheduled to begin in the first week of June in south Darfur, followed by north and west Darfur beginning the second week of June.

For further information, please call:  Stephanie Bunker, OCHA New York, tel: 917 367 5126, mobile 917 892 1679; Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, 41 22 917 2653, mobile 41(0) 79 473 4570.

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