WFP airlifts food to Afghanistan

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, NOV. 23 The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today launched an air bridge into Afghanistan in a bid to bring sufficient quantities of urgently needed food aid to more than 2.7 lakh people living in remote locations across north-eastern Afghanistan.

This is the first time a humanitarian airlift has been launched from Tajikistan and the first time in this current crisis the WFP has used a aircraft to send food into Afghanistan. The aircraft, carrying approximately 17 tonnes of wheat flour, left Kolyiab airport in southern Tajikistan today.

The Hercules will make the 30-minute flight into Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan in north-east Afghanistan, and then return to Kolyiab to reload.

A spokesman of the WFP said here that weather permitting there would be four flights per day for the next few weeks until a total of 2,000 tonnes had been dispatched to Faizabad.

The food would then be put on trucks and taken to remote areas across north-eastern Afganistan.

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Section  : International
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