UPS is sending a further 100-tonne shipment of emergency food aid this weekend to the Horn ofAfrica, as part of its ongoing support for famine victims in the area and for several disaster
relief organisations operating in the region in response to the crisis.The latest shipment is on behalf of UNICEF, and consists primarily of the high-energy foodproduct ‘Plumpy Sup’, an edible paste made of peanuts, packed with calories and vitamins andspecially formulated to re-nourish starving children.
At the start of this month, UPS committed to leveraging its global logistics network to helpspeed emergency supplies to the region, including flying a special B767 charter flight earlier thismonth from Cologne, Germany, to Nairobi, Kenya, loaded with around 50 tonnes of food to assist theUnited Nations World Food Programme (WFP)’s life-saving efforts on the ground. And over thefollowing three weeks, UPS has coordinated the ‘in-kind’ transport of an additional 60 tonnes ofPlumpy Sup for UNICEF from Amsterdam to Nairobi.
In addition, The UPS Foundation provided $100,000 from its Emergency Response Fund to continuesupporting UNICEF’s urgent relief efforts in east Africa. UPS told CEP-Research that it wouldcontinue to work with organisations including UNICEF, CARE and UNHCR to assess their requirementswith a view to providing assistance to them in the future.
Somalia and parts of Kenya and Ethiopia are currently suffering from what experts are callingthe worst drought in 60 years, with millions of people starving and fleeing southern Somalia forrefugee camps in Kenya. Hundreds of thousands of people are still said to be in an immediatelife-threatening state, and also vulnerable to the spread of killer diseases, especially tooutbreaks of measles, diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Earlier this month, TNT Express shipped 45 tonnes of emergency food aid from Liege, Belgium toNairobi, Kenya, to help the WFP feed thousands of children in neighboring Somalia. The B767aircraft containing more than 3,000 boxes of supplementary Plumpy, which was expected to be able totreat 6,000 malnourished children for three months, as part of the agency’s programme to feed 1.5million people in Somalia.
Last week, FedEx Express flew more than 90 tonnes of food aid to east Africa on behalf ofUNICEF, flying a B777 freighter aircraft from Paris to Nairobi. It has also offered to donate asecond B777F relief flight to the organisation for its aid efforts in Somalia.
