By NNN-APP,
United Nations : The World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed help to some 400,000 Afghans hit by soaring wheat prices, the U.N. said today.
At the same time, the UN agency warned that the most vulnerable will continue to need aid for a while as the record high prices show no sign of abating.
In the past few weeks, the agency has handed out about 30,000 tons of food in Kabul, as well as in the east and south of the country. It expects to finish the first round of distributions in Kabul by next Sunday.
Several senior UN officials have called for urgent measures to tackle the global food price crisis, which threatens to hit the world’s poor the hardest and to lead to increased tensions and unrest.
The past few weeks have witnessed violent protests over the increased costs of wheat, maize and rice in a number of countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal, Morocco and, most recently, in Haiti, where several people have died in riots.