United Nations Radio

The World Food Programme has identified five countries as hunger hot spots: Chad, where hundreds of thousands refugees and displaced people depend on food aid, and poor road conditions have been made worse by heavy rains;

Somali women

Sudan, where the agency plans to take over from the Red Cross to feed the largest camp for internally displaced people in Darfur at Gereida; Ethiopia where a combination of drought and unseasonal rains has hurt crop harvests of the country's staple food, teff; Kenya, where WFP is feeding a quarter million Somali and Sudanese refugees. And finally - Somalia, which might be the worst case of all. Denise Brown is WFP's deputy country director there.

Brown: Somalia has been hit by conflict, droughts, inflation, high cost of food, family are stressed, they are having to beg, to live on charity, and depend on the World Food Programme for assistance.

PRES: Marcus Prior, WFP's Spokesperson for Eastern Africa, recently visited Somalia.
SFX helicopter
Prior: I'm not ashamed to admit that flying into Somalia is one of life's more unnerving feelings. You have a deep sense in the pit of your stomach of touching down in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Prior: The need in Somalia for outside assistance is absolutely enormous. 3.25 million people or 43% of the entire population need assistance at this time as a result of drought, as a result of conflict and as a result of the hyper-inflation which has sent food prices in particular skyrocketing a hundred and even two hundred percent in some parts of the country.

PRES: At WFP's clinic in El Berde, a young mother, Timira Hulbale, walked seven kilometers from her village to bring in her one and half year-old son Abdi Daqane.

Hulbale (v/o) My son has been vomiting and has diarrhea - he has been malnourished since he was born but we have no medicine to give him to help him get better.

PRES: WFP is currently feeding 30,000 people in the area, including 5,000 malnourished children. Marcus Prior says many more are in need of assistance.

Prior: One in four children in some parts of Somalia are acutely malnourished and from what we saw in El Berde, in the Bakkol region of Somalia there are many, many children who are in desperate, desperate need of medical assistance, of specialized food and of specialized care.

PRES: In October WFP reached 1.7 million Somalis with food aid and is continuing to expand its operation to reach up to 2.4 million people, but Mr. Prior says the agency and its partners have faced major security constraints in the country.

Prior: The World Food Programme has had two staff killed in the country already this year and others have been targeted and threatened, not just of the World Food Programme, but of other UN agencies and NGOs trying to do important work in a country that has really hit rock bottom.

PRES: Most of the food assistance going to Somalia comes in by sea. But the wave of pirate attacks on some 40 vessels this year has severely disrupted the delivery of food aid. Since one of WFP's own ships was attacked in 2005 and held for more than a hundred days, the agency has been forced to take extra security measures.

Prior: What we have needed in many respects to ensure that that assistance gets through, has been for the last year naval escorts for the ships that bring in over 90 percent of the food assistance that's needed for Somalia.

PRES: Different countries, including the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Canada have contributed military escort forces, but at times WFP has struggled to find this support. In mid-December the European Union assumed responsibility for providing escorts.

Prior: Some people have suggested that it's so dangerous in Somalia at the moment that it's impossible to deliver assistance, but the World Food Programme, having been on the ground for many years and having worked in extremely difficult situations, not just in Somalia but other parts of the world, as well, is in position and continues to deliver vitally needed food assistance every month.

PRES: Marcus Prior, Spokesperson for the World Food Programme, based in Nairobi, Kenya, speaking during his visit to Somalia earlier this month.

Producer: Bissera Kostova

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