Food aid aircraft on way to Somalia

A plane packed with food aid has taken off from Nairobi, bound for the Somali capital of Mogadishu where hundreds of thousands of people are going hungry.

The World Food Programme (WFP) had hoped that the flight would have left yesterday but says it was delayed by red tape in Kenya.

Somalia is suffering from the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in more than 60 years.

As many as 100,000 people have already fled to Mogadishu from famine areas in the south of the country where 2.8 million people are said to be starving.

Stephanie Savariaud is the WFP Spokesperson in Nairobi.

"The plane was carrying 10 tonnes of ready-to-use supplementary food called supplementary 'Plumpy'. The important thing for us with this series of airlifts is that we need to beef up additional stocks that are already in the country, already in the warehouses. We are feeding hundreds of thousands of people in Mogadishu but it's very important, as quickly as possible, to deliver this type of food to children." (Duration: 26″)

A further 80 tonnes of food aid will be airlifted into the Somali capital over the next few weeks with an additional 20 tonnes being sent to border regions in the south.