GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - The United Nations will shut down its humanitarian air services in much of West Africa because of a shortage of funds, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said the chartered helicopters and aircraft used to ferry aid workers and supplies to remote parts of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Ivory Coast would stop on Friday, March 20. "In areas that are not reachable by land ... aid workers will not be able to reach vulnerable people with medical care, food, water and sanitation, and other crucial services," she told a news briefing in Geneva. "The U.N. will also not be in a position to carry out timely medical and security evacuations of humanitarian personnel, if and when needed," the spokeswoman said. There are 250 humanitarian agencies now working to deliver aid in the affected West African countries, Casella said. The exact number of people receiving help from the U.N. air service is not known, but "it is safe to say that thousands of people will be affected," she said. The suspension follows the halting of air deliveries to Niger in February, and temporary shutdowns of flights to the Central African Republic, Niger, and Sudan last year because of budget constraints that have worsened for aid groups since the onset of the world economic crisis. Donor funds from the European Union, United States, Britain, Canada, Spain and the Netherlands amounted to $115 million last year, far below the $193 million budgeted for the flights, which cut days off the time needed to get help to the needy. Aid workers in West Africa have said they will have extreme difficulty doing their work without the helicopters and aircraft to help them reach places where roads and bridges are impassable or where security problems make road journeys unsafe. Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the flights were crucial for reaching people displaced by conflict and disasters. "We work at the end of the earth and the only way to get there is on the humanitarian air service," he told the news briefing in Geneva. Worldwide, the U.N. air service last year carried 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian cargo and 360,000 U.N. staff, aid workers, donors and media staff. The 58 helicopters and aeroplanes also carried out medical and security evacuations in Chad, Mozambique, Myanmar, Somalia and Sudan. (Reporting by Laura MacInnis; editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Tim Pearce)
Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir joins his soldiers in taking an oath pledging support during a demonstration against the International Criminal Courts's arrest warrant for the country's leader, in the capital ...
Food and hunger
