27/1/2006
World Food Programme Faces Funding Shortage in Chechnya and Ingushetia

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) last week said it urgently needed funds to provide food rations for some of the poorest parts of the northern Caucasus

Two months ago, a lack of funding forced WFP to stop assisting 150,000 people in the region and so far it has received only 12 per cent of the $22 million needed for its current, one-year operation.

With the Russian Federation facing its coldest winter in over 25 years, WFP said its current operation, planned to provide 36,368 tons of food to 250,000 people, was experiencing considerable shortages of basic necessities like wheat flour, oil, oats, millet and salt.

WFP normally provides food for one third of the population of Chechnya, including 120,000 of the republic’s most vulnerable population, 26,500 in neighbouring Ingushetia and 131,000 primary and secondary school children in 409 educational institutions scattered across 14 Chechen districts.

Funding of $2.4 million from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department, has allowed the agency to continue its Food-for-Education programme for these 131,000 primary school children.
“It is terrible that impoverished people who have already faced years of suffering now face dangerously cold temperatures with no food. They desperately need our help, and they need it now more than ever,” said Chris Czerwinski, WFP’s Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Russian Federation.