GENEVA, October 18 (RIA Novosti,Yekaterina Andrianova) - The UN World Food Program (WFP) may end food assistance to Azerbaijan due to financial shortages, a regional WFP director said Tuesday, calling on the international community to provide $4 million to continue aid through the coming winter.
Amir Abdullah said the WFP had no other choice but to stop providing food assistance to 130,000 Azerbaijanis displaced by the military conflict with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s.
The WFP's food assistance program to Azerbaijan began in late 1993 and was supposed to continue until mid 2006. According to UN figures, 70% of the Azerbaijanis receiving WFP aid are women and children.
Abdullah said lack of funds would also force the WFP to abandon its school feeding project that serves 5,300 pupils in Azerbaijan's primary schools.
