ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme plans a major acceleration of its overland deliveries into Afghanistan with food aid convoys scheduled to cross the border into the war- and drought-ravaged country from Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

The convoys will be carrying a collective total of 3,285 metric tonnes of food aid – enough to feed almost 700,000 hungry Afghans for one week. The food will raise the total food stocks inside of Afghanistan to over 12,000 tonnes, sufficient for the needs of over 3.4 million people for one week. However, distribution networks have been disrupted and must first be rebuilt.

Some 40 trucks loaded with 1,000 tonnes of food aid are on their way to the Afghan capital of Kabul after departing Peshawar, north west Pakistan, early today.

The trucks, WFP’s biggest single convoy since the crises started, will stop overnight at the Torkham border in the Khyber Pass and are scheduled to reach Kabul on Thursday morning.

On Thursday, a second WFP convoy is expected to leave Quetta in the northern Pakistan province of Balochistan for Herat with a food aid cargo of 475 tonnes.

Another five trucks carrying 100 tonnes of wheat flour have reached the western Afghan city of Herat, using a new humanitarian corridor out of the Iranian city of Mashhad.

A further 110 tonnes left Mashhad today with three more convoys, collectively carrying 600 tonnes of wheat flour, following the same 300-kilometre route to Iranian-Afghan border over the next few days.

A further 30 commercial trucks left Turkmenabad in Turkmenistan today with 1,000 tonnes of food aid on board; these are expected to reach Andkhoi in northern Afghanistan on October 14-15.

In the past few days other shipments of 1,233 tonnes have been dispatched from the town of Ishkashim in Tajikistan to Faisabad in north eastern Afghanistan.

“If WFP is to meet its target of delivering 52,000 tonnes of food aid each month to millions of hungry people inside Afghanistan, it urgently needs to fill-up its warehouses before the region’s harsh winter sets in,” said Mohamed Zejjari, WFP Assistant Executive Director and Director of Operations.

By mid-November, heavy snow often blocks mountain passes into northern and central Afghanistan breaking vital overland routes.

Since the weekend, WFP convoys have continued to truck food aid into Afghanistan with eight trucks reaching Kabul on Tuesday and a further 400 tonnes safely delivered to the Agency’s warehouse in the northern province of Faryab – one of Afghanistan’s worst drought-affected provinces.

WFP distribution programmes to beneficiaries inside the country are also still on going and include 180 tonnes given to the hungry in Kabul on October 8, and a further 180 tonnes of wheat in Herat on October 9.

The number of beneficiaries is expected to increase significantly with the arrival of new deliveries but will also depend on whether the distribution networks operated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are fully operational, especially in the hungry rural areas.

Last week, the Agency launched an appeal for US$257 million to feed 7.5 million Afghans, including six million inside Afghanistan, to prevent famine.

The emergency appeal also includes funds for a US$27 million logistics operation, which will cover the cost of a fleet of 150 trucks to augment the Agency’s ability to deliver its food fast and efficiently into Afghanistan.

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Trevor Rowe
WFP Chief Spokesperson
Tel. +39-06-6513-2602

Christiane Berthiaume
Public Affairs Officer
WFP/Geneva
Tel.+41-22-9178564

Abby Spring
Public Affairs Officer
WFP/New York
Tel. +1-9173029325