Military

DATE=10/23/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-268316

TITLE=W-F-P / SIERRA LEONE (L-ONLY)

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The U-N's World Food Program, W-F-P, says it has been able to deliver food to several thousands of people in a previously inaccessible part of Sierra Leone. Lisa Schlein has more from Geneva.

TEXT: The World Food Program says this is the first time in three months it has had access to anyone outside the capital, Freetown. Because of fighting between the government and rebels, the food agency says, aid workers only have been able to deliver food to people inside the capital and in the surrounding areas.

W-F-P spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume says the agency finally was able to reach people in the town of Daru, in southeastern Sierra Leone. She says the agency delivered 25 tons of food to Daru on Thursday and hopes to follow this up with another delivery this week.

/// 1st BERTHIAUME ACT ///

But that is not enough. There are six-thousand displaced people in Daru, so this food will be only for the most vulnerable, for the children, the women those who suffer most from the lack of food. And we hope to be able to go more often to Daru.

/// END ACT ///

Aid workers report children in Daru are suffering from malnutrition, and women and elderly are in poor condition. Although the situation inside Daru is calm, Ms. Berthiaume says fighting continues outside the town between government and rebel forces. She says W-F-P has to fly food in by helicopter because it is too dangerous to go by road.

Ms. Berthiaume says W-F-P now is trying to gain access to the town of Bombuna, which also has been cut off from assistance for several months. She says the agency believes there are more than six-thousand displaced people there who are probably in more urgent need of food assistance than the people in Daru.

/// 2nd BERTHIAUME ACT ///

Obviously, the state of these people is not good, and they haven't been able to plant [crops]. They haven't been able to harvest. This is a war situation. They arrived in those cities with nothing because, as usual when people flee, they don't have time to take anything with them. So they arrive in places, in towns like that, that are already suffering because they are cut off from the rest of the country.

/// END ACT ///

Ms. Berthiaume says these thousands of displaced people are putting an enormous burden on the local population , which is also in urgent need of food. (Signed)

NEB/LS/KL/WTW