The United Nations food relief agency Friday appealed to Kenyan authorities to allow assistance for more than 100,000 people to be trucked into Somalia, where piracy is hampering deliveries by sea.
One hundred and forty WFP-contracted trucks carrying the food left the Kenyan port of Mombasa and were unexpectedly stopped at the Northeast Kenyan border crossing of El-Wak since they first started arriving there on 25 May.
The Kenyan overland route was chosen because of major problems with sea routes to Somalia plagued by pirate attacks.
Many of the 140 WFP-contracted trucks had waited so long at El-Wak that they were unloaded in recent days and the food assistance moved to a local warehouse, the agency said.
The Nairobi Government has closed its border with Somalia since January to people and commercial traffic, but humanitarian assistance was previously allowed across into the war-ravaged country.
Fighting between the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and anti-TFG factions caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes earlier this year.
Kilde: www.un.org
