The World Food Programme (WFP) in Malawi has warned that it is running out of food rations amid an influx of refugees and asylum seekers escaping fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to reports monitored here on Tuesday, WFP spokesperson Badre Bahaji said the United Nations agency currently has sufficient resources to provide food assistance to refugees until February 2023.
He revealed that WFP had slashed the amount of rations provided to refugees due to the declining resources.
“WFP has been providing reduced rations to about 75 percent of daily caloric needs because we don’t have sufficient resources,”Bahaji said.
According to the UN agency, Malawi’s Dzaleka Refugee Camp near the capital Lilongwe now has about 56,000 refugees against its holding capacity of 10,000.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees figures show that there were more than 560 new arrivals at the camp in September alone and that the number of refugees has grown 13 percent from 49,000 in March 2021.
The bulk of the refugees are from the DRC while the remainder are from Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Somalia.
Fighting has intensified recently in eastern DRC between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese Armed Forces.
JN/APA