Citation
NAIROBI, March 10 (AFP) - The U.N. food agency said Wednesday that it was stepping up food aid to at least 900,000 Rwandans displaced by an upsurge in fighting between government troops and rebels in the past month.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said it was airlifting some 235 tonnes of food daily to the Rwandan capital Kigali from neighbouring Uganda.
WFP said about 15,000 tonnes of food a month are needed for the displaced people, estimated to number between 850,000 and a million.
The latest figure given by the agency was 900,000, including 350,000 people who were already displaced and had to flee for a second or third time since the civil war erupted 28 months ago.
WFP has airlifted 1,595 tonnes of food to Rwanda in the past two weeks, with other supplies coming in by road.
Fresh fighting erupted last month in the small, densely populated highland nation when the mainly Tutsi rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a major offensive against the majority Hutus in power.
jnm/dc/nb AFP AFP SEQN-0193
