Iraq food aid to restart in June says UN

UNITED NATIONS - The UN food aid organisation said today it would fully resume distributing food in Iraq on June 1 in an attempt to avert widespread hunger after the country's food distribution system was interrupted by the war.

But dealing with looting of facilities and making sure the country's wheat harvest gets to Iraqis, are significant problems, UN World Food Programme director James Morris told the UN Security Council in a briefing on Thursday.

His briefing came after the council voted to lift sanctions on Iraq, handing unprecedented powers to the United States and Britain but giving the United Nations a limited role in rebuilding Iraq.

Before the war began in March, the agency helped sanction-crippled Iraq get food rations to the vast majority of its 28 million population through a system of 44,000 food and flour agents across the country.

That system is to be re-established, in the face of widespread looting and the collapse of the banking system.

"With the restoration of the public distribution system, we are confident that we can avoid any hunger among Iraqis," Morris said. Most Iraqis have enough food to last until June, according to the World Food Programme.

The agency has already delivered enough food to Iraq via Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Iran to feed half the population for a month, Morris said.

From June to September, he said, the programme's aim will be to get back to supplying enough food to Iraq to feed the whole population.

But the security of warehouses, silos, mills and offices, in the face of widespread looting and the breakdown of law and order was the biggest challenge, Morris said.

The agency has agreed to buy up to 1.2 million tons of Iraq's wheat harvest this year, Morris said, using funds from the UN's oil-for-food programme, which is being wound down.

But he said that would only be possible if a board was established to administer grain sales while looted or damaged equipment was replaced or repaired and arrangements for paying local food distributors set up in the absence of a working bank system.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq