(AKI) - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday it has started distributing food in in battle-scarred Mogadishu to 16,000 people left hungry as a consequence of the worst fighting to hit the Somali capital in 16 years. On Monday, a Somali non-governmental organisation started distributing WFP maize, nutritious corn-soya blend and vegetable oil to 7,000 people at three sites in Mogadishu. On Tuesday dsitrbution will begin at another five sites to reach 9,000 other people in the capital, the Rome-based agency said in a news release. "These people are exhausted,” said WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens in Nairobi. “Most of them are women and they were either forced to flee their homes with their children during the recent fighting or they stayed in the city throughout the worst bombardments. These families require food and other assistance after their terrible ordeal.”“We started in the heaviest damaged areas in north Mogadishu, where the fighting was concentrated. But we are also reaching many of those who are still outside Mogadishu and are too frightened to return, but are struggling in terrible conditions under trees in the rain,” he said.
Distributions of WFP food to 42,000 people displaced southwards from Mogadishu to the port of Merka were completed on Sunday and 9,000 displaced in Qoryoley district to the southwest of the capital received WFP food on Monday. Distributions to 13,500 people in Brava town are due to start on Wednesday. In late April, WFP food was distributed to 32,000 displaced west of the capital shortly before heavy fighting ended in Mogadishu on 27
April.
WFP says it needs an extra 10 million US dollars in donations for its operations in Mogadishu. The United Nations High Commmissioner for Refugees estimates that 395,000 people have fled the city – over a third of the capital’s population – since 1 February. But following the end of heavy fighting, some are now trickling back.