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afrol News, 29 June - Some 30,000 Cape Verdeans are facing hunger, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The UN agency therefore has launched a US$ 1.3-million emergency food operation to help feed these victims of failed harvests. According to reports from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), WFP's regional office has appealed for aid to meet the food deficit in Cape Verde with an emergency operation. The operation was to target "mainly vulnerable groups," such as households headed by women, handicapped persons and elderly people. Most of the targeted beneficiaries live on the islands of Santiago and Santo Antão. These are the largest and most populous islands in Cape Verde, a very arid Sahelian archipelago 600 km west of Senegal, OCHA reported. WFP's appeal had followed a request from the Cape Verdean government earlier this month, the first such request in more than 20 years. The appeal had come after a food assessment showed that "many families had already consumed their seed reserves and had none left to sow in the June-July planting season," WFP said from its regional headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. Prime Minister José Maria Neves three weeks ago had recognised there was a "malnutrition problem" in Cape Verde and asked the international community "to assist these poor communities" now suffering from food shortages. Cereal harvests in 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 have been only half those of 1999/2000 due to poor rainfall. The consumption of sowing grains increases the crisis. "Unless food distributions commence immediately, the next harvest will be in jeopardy as well," WFP had added in its statement. Cape Verde, was a "structurally food insecure country" and is prone to food shortages since it can only produce about 10 percent of its food requirements each year. It gets the rest of its food through bilateral food aid donations and imports, the UN food agency had said. Adding to the current crisis, financial difficulties this year have prevented the Cape Verdean government from providing necessary funds for the state-run poverty alleviation structures.
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