WFP begins food air drops in Bentiu

8 Sep 2015

WFP begins food air drops in Bentiu

7 September 2015 - With the rainy season making roads impassable, the World Food Programme (WFP) began air dropping much-needed food in the Unity State capital Bentiu today.

According to Francis Sarpong, WFP head of office in the state, the month-long exercise is expected to reach an estimated 130,000 individuals.

“We do airdrops as a very last resort because all the roads are blocked,” he said. “You cannot move food by road from Mayom junction to Bentiu Town (which is) a distance of just 15 kilometres.”

UNMISS Relief, Reintegration and Protection (RRP) Officer Norbert Niyodusenga said WFP was left with no option but to airdrop food after the only supply route from Juba to Wau to Mayom and then to Bentiu was cut off by rains.

He noted that the whole exercise would be conducted in weekly phases until the end of the rainy period. The first phase, which kicked off today, would continue until 12 September.

Mr. Niyodusenga said airlifting food using Mi-26 helicopters was expensive and one Mi-26 could carry only 12 metric tons per rotation. WFP was using a much larger aircraft to drop 36 metric tons per rotation each day to make a total of 108 metric tons daily for at least a week.

He added that WFP, with support from partners like German Agro Action and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, needed around 2,000 metric tons of food to feed internally displaced persons living in UNMISS protection sites as well as those in Bentiu and Rubkona towns as well as surrounding villages.

The UNMISS Mongolian battalion and military liaison officers would provide force protection and crowd control capability to ensure safe collection, loading and delivery of the supplies to WFP Logistics Base at the UNMISS Bentiu compound, he said.

Mr. Niyodusenga said force protection and crowd control were necessary to prevent food from landing in hands other than those of its intended beneficiaries.

“Force protection has been a requirement since the beginning of the crisis,” he said, adding that incidents in the past would see humanitarian actors being stopped or harassed on the road.