Tens of thousands face food shortage in Burundi due to drought – UN aid agency

16 January 2009 – After crops in the north of Burundi withered during a drought between September and October 2008, an estimated 16,500 households in the tiny East African country are facing a severe food shortage, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today.

According to WFP, farmers in the northern province of Kirundo are also deprived of the money they normally get by selling part of their harvest to traders in advance, due to the early demise of their crops.

That money traditionally helps tide over farmers during the lean season before the harvest.

While getting assistance to those families, the agency says it is also continuing food distributions to nearly 60,000 people in need in eight other provinces of the country, distributing some 361 metric tonnes of food between 5 and 10 January.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), meanwhile, reports that in 2008 it distributed refugee aid packages to some 95,068 Burundians returning to their home country after fleeing the ethnic conflict that plagued it for decades.

In 2000, Burundians were one of the largest refugee populations in the world, second only to Afghans, but since 2002, UNHCR has assisted a total of 473,865 Burundians returning from Tanzania and other countries of refuge.