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afrol News, 29 July - Although the emergency operation to feed 30,000 Cape Verdeans threatened by hunger has started, the UN agency reports that it is under-funded. WFP had appealed for US$ 1.2 million, but had to start the operation without having received the necessary funding. To date, WFP has received just 50 percent of its total food needs for the Cape Verde operation. "Hunger is rapidly increasing amid deteriorating living conditions in Cape Verde," said Sonsoles Ruedas, WFP's representative in Praia. WFP launched its appeal after the Cape Verde government made its first request for emergency food aid in over 20 years. The archipelago with 401,000 inhabitants is largely dependent on overseas aid and on money sent home by 700,000 migrant workers living abroad. The islands historically are food insecure - only producing 10 percent of its population's needs even in years of plentiful rain - and depend on bilateral food aid donations and commercial imports. Cape Verde's harvest this year witnessed a 23 percent drop in production on 2001, which was already low. As a result, food shortages have hit six of Cape Verde's total 10 islands, in particular the two largest and most populous islands of Santiago and Santo Antão. Many people, mostly women, have resorted to selling sand; a practice which is environmentally unsustainable and has already seriously damaged most of the local beaches and allowed saline water to infiltrate once fertile land. In response, WFP food aid was "targeting the most vulnerable families among the 30,000 estimated hungry, including women, the handicapped and elderly who are unable to work," according to information from the UN agency. WFP also warned that "many families have already used up their seed reserves and have nothing left to plant for the harvest." - June and July are Cape Verde's main planting season and, unless food distributions start immediately, the next harvest will be in jeopardy as well, WFP added.
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