The World Food Program (WFP) said Wednesday that two-and-a-half million people in the Central African Republic (CAR) have too little to eat because of conflict and insecurity. Nearly half a million people have fled their homes and remain displaced within the country, while more than 450,000 have fled to neighboring countries, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says. "Three years of crisis have taken a huge toll on the people of the CAR," WFP Deputy Country Director Guy Adoua said in a statement. "Families have been forced so often to sell what they own, pull their kids out of school, even resort to begging, that they have reached the end of their rope. This is not the usual run-of-the-mill emergency. People are left with nothing." One in six Central Africans are struggling with extreme food insecurity and more than one in three do not know where their next meal is coming from, the agency said. "WFP is extremely concerned by this alarming level of hunger. People not only lack enough food but are also forced to consume low-cost, low-nutrient food that does not meet their nutritional needs," Adoua said. WFP said that it was providing food and nutritional support through food distributions, cash transfers, school meals, and other activities and in December it provided food for nearly 400,000 people. The agency said that its operations were only 45 percent funded and it needed $41 million to meet urgent needs through to the end of June in CAR and those of its neighbors hosting Central African refugees.
