THE World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing for financial aid of about US$10 million to acquire more food to feed refugees in the country.“We (WFP) are lacking resources to buy foodstuffs for the refugees living in Rwanda and by the middle of July we will run out of stock,” the Deputy Country Director of WFP, Jan Delbaere, told The New Times, on Monday.He added if they fail to get the funds, they may consider reducing by half the portion each refugee is entitled per day.According to Delbaere, if they raise the funds, they intend to buy the cereals within the country through the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources and directly from local traders. . WFP last month signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources committing to purchase the country’s cereals mainly maize and beans.Delbaere said under the same agreement, they will be purchasing 20,000 metric tones of maize and 10,000 metric tones of beans annually which will be distributed to various refugee camps in countries which include Burundi, South Sudan, DRC and Somalia.In an interview with The New Times last Friday, Anouck Broonee, the External Relations Officer at UNHCR said her organisation was not aware of WFP’s financial constraints.“(UNHCR) is not aware that WFP currently has inadequate funds to buy food for the refugees in the country but if it’s like that we will hold discussions with them and parties involved in these issues very soon and see how we can come up with a quick solution,” Broonee said.9,700 refugees recently fled into Rwanda escaping conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to add to around 56,000 refugees from various countries that have been living in the country.“The more people coming in, the more pressure put both on the resources and the funds to look after the refugees,” Broonee noted.
