Rwanda : WFP needs funds for refugee upkeep
The World Food Programme (WFP) in Rwanda has said that it needs over $11.9 million to feed 54,000 Congolese refugees harboured in three camps around the country up to April 2013.
However the organization is currently faced with a crisis due to low response to raise fund from donors despite an international appeal for funds to feed the ever increasing number of refugees harboured in Rwanda and Uganda as well as those internally displaced in the eastern D.R. Congo.
The UN organization is currently facing a combined funding shortfall of about US$46 million over the next six months to feed refugees in both Rwanda and Uganda and those displaced by war inside the D.R. Congo.
WFP officials in Kigali say that the worsening situation in the D.R. Congo, more funds are required to feed those fleeing from war especially that the numbers of refugees have been increasing at a higher rate than expected.
John Paul Sesonga, a WFP communications officer, said there has been a slow response from the international community to its recent cash appeal to feed refugees around the country terming the fate of the refugees as ‘worrying’.
So far, only Germany has committed Euros 1.2 millions for emergency supplies to internally displaced persons and refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, part of which will go to the World Food Programme to procure food supplies for the refugees in the country.
Sesonga said that more refugees are fleeing to Rwanda yet the organization has not yet received any interventions to provide funds to purchase the food- which is already available on the Rwandan market in plenty.
The war in DR Congo has led to thousands of refugees fleeing the fights between government and rebels groups such as FDLR and M23 in the eastern and northern regions of Congo. The numbers of civilians entering Rwanda on daily basis are estimated at over 200.
