The United Nations World Food Program said on Thursday that the U.S.-flagged ship taken over by pirates off the coast of Somalia contains vital foodstuffs destined for Somalia, Uganda and Kenya. A World Food Program (WFP) spokesman in Nairobi Peter Smerdon says there is concern that if the container ship, Maersk Alabama, cannot reach Mombasa, Kenya soon, many people in the region may not get the foodstuffs they need to sustain them in the coming months. Smerdon says the WFP cargo includes more than 4,000 tons of corn-soya blend for malnourished children and mothers in Somalia and Uganda and nearly 1,000 tons of vegetable oil for refugees in Kenya. Smerdon says there are many more containers of food aid belonging to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies. “We need to keep a constant pipeline of food coming both to Somalia and to other countries in the region,” said Smerdon. “Otherwise, we have to cut rations and people will go hungry. Basically, this amount of food would feed hundreds of thousands of people for a month. It is only a part of the basket of food we give people in the region. But it is an important part.”
