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| August 7, 2008 |
Today was ‘Food Distribution Day at Oure Cassoni camp for Darfuri refugees.
Food rations have been cut. What used to feed a family of four now must be stretched to sustain 6 people.
Listed below are the rations given out today at Oure Casssoni -- to each person. They must make their supply last for one month. They will also share their rations with newly arrived, unregistered refugees. The camp quota cannot exceed 27,000 people. The aid agencies do not have the capacity to sustain more.
Each person receives;
2.65 oz of cooking oil
1.59 oz of sugar
0.55 oz’s of salt (for the first time in months salt has been available)
3.3 pounds of lentils
22 lbs cereal
3.3 lbs sorghum
soap—but none has been available for months
The goal is to give each refugee 2100 calories. But for months they have been receiving 1800 calories-less than the minimum requirement. Suggested calorie consumption in the US is about 2500 calories a day. Conservatively.
I have heard that Chadians, the 250,000 also displaced by Janjaweed attacks, receive 40% of what the Darfuri refugees are given, but I have not yet been able to confirm this.
The World Food Programme representative here told me that “US dollars cannot buy what they could before. “ The WFP is running out of money. As you know, food rations to the more than 2. 5 million people in the camps of Darfur have been halved (as of last May) Insecurity on the ground has forced food to be delivered by air. This is unsustainably expensive yet we cannot let people starve. It is the children under five who die first. Anyone wishing to help should donate to the WFP.
The cost of grain has risen dramatically. And the cost of transportation is, as we all know, is sky high. The people here have been asking for new jerry-cans, the plastic containers they need to carry water from the water-point to their dwellings. But the cost of getting the containers to the camp now exceeds the cost of manufacturing and purchasing them. All supplies come here by road through libya and Cameroon. When the roads are impassible-which is OFTEN in the rainy reason, supplies cannot get through. It is a precarious situation.