The World Food Program issued
an urgent appeal to
fill a looming $35.4 million funding gap for the next six months and avoid an
empty food supply for refugees in Kenya in February.
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Oxfam delivers WFP food sacks to
Kenyan village. The World Food
Program issued an urgent appeal
to fill a looming $35.4 million
funding gap for the next six
months and avoid an empty food supply for
refugees in Kenya in February.
Photo by: Anna Ridout
/ Oxfam / CC
BY-NC-ND
|
Dadaab and Kakuma camps in northern
Kenya house about 550,000 refugees. They come mostly from Somalia, Sudan,South
Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi, and require about $12
million monthly for food.
“Time is short,” WFP Kenya Country
Director Ronald Sibanda stressed, adding that new contributions are vital
to ensure food rations will continue through March, “the onset of the short
rains.” Sibanda also said that the agency can have food ready for distribution
five to six weeks after receiving new funds.
“We are committed to continuing our
support for refugees in Kenya, but unless WFP receives new contributions
quickly, we might be forced, as a last resort, to reduce ration sizes so our
existing food stocks will last longer.”
Refugees have been staying in Kenya
for a year now and potential issues stemming from this include security
problems and disease outbreaks. The effects of the 2011 Horn of Africa crisis
are still reverberating around Kenya and donors are really careful about their
potential effect on the nation’s stability, especially with the upcoming
election — they want to make sure that everything will run smoothly.
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