BUJUMBURA, 25 January (IRIN) -
Thousands of people in western Burundi face food insecurity after floods swept away crops during the January harvest, officials said. President Pierre Nkurunziza, handing over relief aid for
distribution to the 17,000 people displaced by flood in Gatumba Zone, Bujumbura Rural Province, said on Tuesday the government was seeking more aid. He handed over rice, maize flour, salt as well as
blankets to a Greek nongovernmental organisation, Doctors of the Heart, for distribution among the displaced. The Ministry of Solidarity, Human Rights and Gender also delivered beans, maize flour,
salt and blankets. At the same time, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) expressed concern over food security in seven provinces, some of which were first affected by drought, then by the
recent floods. At the beginning of January, the agency embarked on a project to provide 1,700 metric tonnes of relief food, comprising maize and beans, to at least 400,000 food-insecure people in
the provinces of Ngozi, Kayanza, Muyinga, Kirundo, Cankuzo and Gitega. Guillaume Foliot, WFP programme officer in Burundi, said the agency would also begin providing relief food for those who did
not receive government aid in Mutimbuzi Commune. "People did not harvest and our organisation is worried about how they will emerge from this humanitarian situation," Foliot said in the capital,
Bujumbura. "WFP is committed to providing relief to residents whose crops were swept away." He said from January to June, the agency would help at least 300,000 residents affected by flooding. However, Foliot said the agency did not have adequate food stocks to help all the people in need. The challenge, he said, was to "maximise the food supply in April and May because, as time moves on,
the organisation records a more serious situation of food shortages". He added that the agency would have to identify priorities. According to Foliot, at least 70 percent of Burundians often go
hungry. The situation is likely to persist, he said, as there "remains a 330,000 metric tonnes food deficit, which is neither covered by relief aid nor by farming activities". Since November 2006,
heavy rains have damaged crops and destroyed infrastructure in many provinces of Burundi. On 4 January, the government set up a national solidarity fund to support people affected by floods in seven
provinces. In a decree, Nkurunziza declared the provinces of Kayanza in the north, Muramvya and Karuzi in the central part of the country, Ruyigi in the east, and Bubanza and Cibitoke in the
northwest, as "hunger-stricken following floods". bn/js/lo/mw/oss
