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US$57m needed for Burundi refugees in EA region

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The World Food Programme needs US$ 57 million to meet the needs of new and existing Burundi refugees in the East Africa region particularly in Uganda and Rwanda, over the next six months.

The information is contained in a situation report, with the WFP indicating that as of May 30, more than 265,000 Burundians had fled their country into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, and that in all, there are 1,000 new arrivals weekly into neighbouring countries.

In a related development, a survey, the Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) conducted in April 2016 in 18 provinces across the country by the WFP has indicated that some 4.6 million people in Burundi are food insecure, with more than 590,000 of them requiring urgent emergency food assistance. The UN food agency also noted that the food stocks are stretched as a result of the fragile socio-economic context in the country.

“The assessment further indicates that the socio-political crisis has aggravated an already fragile food security, nutrition, and socio-economic context in Burundi,” the agency said.

WFP noted that among the drivers of food insecurity include increasing poverty levels; reduced agricultural production; El Niño phenomena associated with heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides, which resulted in displacements and destruction of crops; adoption of severe livelihood coping strategies, such as reduction of expenditure on agricultural inputs; and disruption of markets.

The assessment recommends provision of short-term food assistance and farm inputs for shorter-season crops.

In addition, the assessment recommends strengthening of resilience activities for vulnerable food insecure households and strengthening or expanding social protection programmes for the most vulnerable, to enable them to cope with shocks, WFP said.

 

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