The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has airlifted 10 tonnes of emergency supplies to the Somalicapital of Mogadishu as part of its famine relief activities in the Horn of Africa, and TNT is
preparing to provide airlift support for the measures.Today African Union forces launched an offensive against rebels in the divided city so that aidagencies will be able to distribute supplies to starving people safely.
The delivery from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi was the first in a series of airlifts aiming tosupply 100 tonnes to feed 35,000 children every month, according to a WFP spokesman. The suppliesof protein-rich peanut butter paste will feed thousands of children who are malnourished due to thesevere drought in the Horn of Africa region.
The WFP said today it has received offers of logistics support from UPS and TNT, who cooperatein the Logistics Emergency Teams (LETs).
A TNT spokesman confirmed to CEP-Research that the WFP has officially requested logisticssupport. “We will contribute airlift capabilities and we have also just started an internalfundraising initiative,” he said.
The private sector Logistics Emergency Teams are groups of experienced logistics personnel (suchas warehousing, fleet, air and reports officers) ready to be deployed to an emergency within atimeframe of 48 hours, following requests from the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) onbehalf of the Logistics Cluster, for which WFP is the lead agency. The cluster coordinates thelogistical response of the humanitarian community at times of disaster.
The UN agency also said today there has been a surge of worldwide donations in recent days andit has received pledges of $250 million from various countries around the world. This leaves theorganisation’s funding shortfall for the massive operation in the region over the next six monthsat US$252 million.
But it also criticised “inaccurate” TV reports which claimed that food stocks in warehouses inMogadishu had not been distributed to suffering people. The WFP, which is currently feeding 1.5million people in Somalia, including more than 300,000 people in Mogadishu, said it had received nofood supplies to the Somali capital between April and 4 July, and had thus been forced to stretchout the April stocks. “Most of the food shown in the television images, alleged not to have beendistributed for months , arrived in the last couple of weeks (between 5 and 17 July),” itstated.
