UN Agency Warns of Food Aid Shortages for Chechen Refugees
Charity News Online
Already obliged for lack of funds to cut the number of displaced Chechens it supports and drastically reduce rations, WFP has warned that it will have to halt its Chechnya operation entirely in three months unless fresh pledges are made soon. “From October, we will have absolutely nothing left to distribute,” said Koryun Alaverdyan, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in the Russian Federation. “The people we seek to assist are the poorest survivors of the Chechen conflict.”
The UN agency has mobilized just 28 percent of the US$22 million it needs to feed 250,000 Chechens during 2006. They include 130,000 primary school children in Chechnya and 27,000 Chechens displaced by the conflict, living in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.
The conflict in Chechnya, which began in September 1999, forced many people to flee into neighboring regions, and a still precarious security situation has prevented most from returning home. Of the 39,000 who have returned since 2004, many live in dire conditions, struggling to survive amidst the devastation, high unemployment and escalating poverty.
WFP provides food aid through soup kitchens for orphans, the disabled and the elderly in Grozny, the Chechen capital. It also supports food-for-work projects, whereby participants are paid in food to rehabilitate agricultural and other infrastructure. Other activities include food-for-training schemes to teach marketable skills to displaced Chechens, and food-for-education programmes for primary school children.
United Nations, Chechnya, World Food Program
Charity News Online
Already obliged for lack of funds to cut the number of displaced Chechens it supports and drastically reduce rations, WFP has warned that it will have to halt its Chechnya operation entirely in three months unless fresh pledges are made soon. “From October, we will have absolutely nothing left to distribute,” said Koryun Alaverdyan, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in the Russian Federation. “The people we seek to assist are the poorest survivors of the Chechen conflict.”
The UN agency has mobilized just 28 percent of the US$22 million it needs to feed 250,000 Chechens during 2006. They include 130,000 primary school children in Chechnya and 27,000 Chechens displaced by the conflict, living in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.
The conflict in Chechnya, which began in September 1999, forced many people to flee into neighboring regions, and a still precarious security situation has prevented most from returning home. Of the 39,000 who have returned since 2004, many live in dire conditions, struggling to survive amidst the devastation, high unemployment and escalating poverty.
WFP provides food aid through soup kitchens for orphans, the disabled and the elderly in Grozny, the Chechen capital. It also supports food-for-work projects, whereby participants are paid in food to rehabilitate agricultural and other infrastructure. Other activities include food-for-training schemes to teach marketable skills to displaced Chechens, and food-for-education programmes for primary school children.
United Nations, Chechnya, World Food Program
posted by Lisa Vronskaya at 2:58 PM
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