MANILA, July 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) suspended on Wednesday its delivery of food rations to hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the southern Philippines after a series of bomb attacks this week, officials said. Five bombs have exploded on the southern Mindanao island and nearby Jolo island since Saturday, killing eight people and wounding nearly 90 in what officials said could be an attempt to hurt efforts to revive peace talks between Manila and rebels. The United Nations and some foreign embassies in Manila have imposed a travel ban this week on restive areas in the south after the bomb attacks, concerned over the safety of hundreds of foreign and local staff, said Alghassim Wurie, WFP acting head. "Our staff were supposed to visit refugee centres on Mindanao island this week to validate the actual number of displaced people," Wurie said, adding the travel ban forced them to suspend operations in the south. "We hope and pray the security situation there would calm down in the weekend and if this will happen, we will resume our operations next week," he said. Nearly 350,000 people have been displaced by fighting which has escalated in the oil and gas-rich marshlands on the southern island of Mindanao in the last two months, pushing back peace talks stalled since August 2008. [ID:nMAN416748] [ID:nMAN494095]. The WFP has distributed nearly 12,000 tonnes of rice to about 600,000 displaced families in six Muslim provinces in the south of the mainly Catholic state since August 2008, when hostilities started. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco and Sugita Katyal)
A woman delivers a baby with the help of municipal health workers at a rural health facility centre in Bohol province in central Philippines July 7, 2009. As World Population Day ...
