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SOMALIA / FOOD DISTRIBUTION
STORY: SOMALIA / FOOD DISTRIBUTION
TRT: 2:12
SOURCE: AU/UN Information Support Team
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / SOMALI / NATS
DATELINE: 4 AUGUST 2011, MADINA, MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
1. Wide shot, IDP camp with AMISOM soldier watching over
2. Med shot, World Food Programme personnel with IDPs
3. Med shot, food distribution
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Ankunda, Spokesperson, African Union Mission in Somalia:
"Well today this is a World Food Programme feeding centre. It's one of their many centres here in Mogadishu so we came here to witness exactly how they do their job so that we can recommend how we can provide security where possible.”
5. Various shots, food distribution
6. Various shots, food distribution
7. SOUNDBITE (English) David Orr, Spokesperson, World Food Programme:
"Well, this is one of the sites where we are doing hot meals for people in Mogadishu who have been displaced, many of them recently, we have 23 such sites throughout the city, we are reaching about 85,000 people a day with these hot meals.”
8. Various shots, food distribution
9. SOUNDBITE (Somali) Amina, Internally Displaced Person:
"My name is Amina. We fled from hunger. We came from Mundul Barawe. We came here (Mogadishu), we trekked for 15 days; we came here; we did not have anything. We were hungry.”
10. Various shots, displaced people in camp
The World Food Programme (WFP) Spokesman Daivd Orr said that the agency has 23 food distribution sites throughout Mogadishu and is reaching about 85,000 people a day with hot meals.
According to WFP, the number of people in need of food assistance in Somalia is now 3.7 million or more than a third of the country’s population because of deepening drought and conflict exacerbated by high food prices.
WFP is feeding 1.5 million people in the northern and central parts of Somalia and in Mogadishu which continues to fill up with those fleeing the famine zone.
More than two million people in need of food aid are currently inaccessible because of insecurity. Staple cereal prices are at record levels. Somalia has some of the highest malnutrition rates in the world with one in four children acutely malnourished in the south.
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is currently providing security in WFP distribution centers Mogadishu. “We came here to witness exactly how they do their job so that we can recommend how we can provide security where possible,” said AMISOM’s Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Ankunda who was visiting Madina food distribution center yesterday (4 Aug).
Latest media reports are saying that gunmen opened fire at a WFP food distribution center in the Somali capital today (5 Aug).
Many of the displaced people walked for days to get a distribution centers in Mogadishu. “We trekked for 15 days; we came here; we did not have anything and we were hungry,” said Amina, an internally displaced Somali.
The Food and Agriculture Organization warned that famine is expected to spread across all regions of the south in the coming four to six weeks and is likely to persist until at least December 2011.
South Somalia's three new famine areas join the Bakool zone and the Lower Shabelle region, which were declared famine-struck on 20 July. Famine indicators include death rates exceeding two deaths per 10 000 people per day and acute malnutrition rates in excess of 30 percent.
The current Horn of Africa drought is the first since a two-year regional drought from 2007 to 2009 that saw the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance rise to some 23 million at its peak in September 2009.
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