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Funding crisis threatens UN air drops in C.Africa: WFP

By AFP
Central African Republic The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service UNHAS says it needs 3m to keep running its operations in Central African Republic for the next three months.  By ALEXIS HUGUET AFPFile
DEC 18, 2018 LISTEN
The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) says it needs $3m to keep running its operations in Central African Republic for the next three months. By ALEXIS HUGUET (AFP/File)

UN humanitarian air operations in Central African Republic risk being grounded next month if the service can't raise an immediate $3 million in funding, the World Food Programme warned on Tuesday.

The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) allows aid workers to deliver vital humanitarian supplies to tens of thousands of people in some of the most inaccessible areas of this war-torn country.

But a shortage of funding has put the service at risk of shutting down, a UNHAS statement said.

"UNHAS, which depends entirely on the support of international donors to finance its operating costs, is in urgent need of $3 million (2.6 million euros) to maintain its service for the next three months and will be grounded after January if there is no immediate injection of funds."

The country has suffered bloody sectarian violence that has left thousands dead and forced more than a quarter of its population of 4.5 million people to flee their homes, UN figures show.

"CAR has been mired in conflict for years with regular spikes. Roads become impassable and whole parts of the country are often completely cut off from the capital Bangui leaving UNHAS as the main means of transport to access hard-to-reach locations," said spokesman Herve Verhoosel.

Of those forced to flee, 700,000 are internally displaced while another 570,000 have fled abroad, with 2.9 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

"In the month of November alone, following clashes in the central, north-west, east and south-east regions of the country, UNHAS provided transport for over 2,000 aid workers -- a record for a single month since it started operations in CAR in 2006," he said.

Between January to November, the WFP provided food assistance to more than 1.2 million people, with the UN agency warning losing the air operations would harm an "essential" part of its humanitarian operations.

"The need for UNHAS is as great as it has ever been, and it would be a real tragedy for aid operations if it were to close down," said Giancarlo Cirri, the WFP's country director for CAR.

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