Ambassador Hall Assesses the Impact of the Security Situation on Humanitarian Aid for Darfur and Chad

Ambassador Tony Hall,
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture
November 18, 2004

Tony Hall, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture traveled to Sudan and Libya November 18-23 to assess the security situation and its impact on the delivery of much needed food aid in the region. Ambassador Hall visited camps for the displaced in North, West and South Darfur and then visited the town of Al Kufra in the Libyan desert where he met with Libyan government and World Food Program (WFP) officials and witnessed the passage of a kilometer-long caravan of trucks carrying 6,540 metric tons of United States food aid as it continued on the grueling 2,800-kilometer journey to refugee camps in Chad.

The event heralded a landmark agreement reached in August between WFP and the Libyan government that guarantees the safe passage of food aid and other humanitarian supplies through Libya to Chad by air, water and road. Ambassador Hall played an active role in bringing WFP and the Libyan government together.

Donated by the U.S. Government, the food aid being transported across the Libyan corridor to Chad is a complete food basket, which includes sorghum, cornmeal, lentils, vegetable oil and corn-soya blend. The shipment allows WFP to provide the 200,000 refugees with almost all the commodities needed for their daily diet over a two-month period.

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