SOMALIA-FOOD: WFP Moves to Stop Refugees From Pouring Into Kenya

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jun 28 1996 (IPS) - The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a programme to distribute relief food to starving people in Somalia in an effort to stop them from pouring into neighbouring Kenya.

In the WFP’s first cross-border road operation from Kenya in four years, food convoys carrying 84 tonnes of maize and vegetable oil left Dadaad refugee camp and headed for Somalia’s Juba Valley over the weekend.

Before reaching the area, it distributed 24 tonnes of the food to 5,660 displaced Somalis in the no-man’s land between Somalia and Kenya, according to the WFP.

Ten trucks took the remaining 60 tonnes to the districts of Bu’aale and Sakow in the Middle Juba li tracontrol checkpoints along roads there operate independently.