YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on February 7 announced that it spend most of food aid envisaged for 110 thousand people in Armenia due to absence of funding. NT correspondent was informed at the WFP Armenia Office that WFP immediately appealed to the donors to allocate over 4 mln USD to provide food assistance to the most vulnerable groups of the country's population in the next six months. This will complete the 2-year program of 11 mln USD which was started in June 2004. According to a press release of WFP Armenia Office, since early January, 65 thousand people have received aid in Armenia, most of whom are elderly persons and schoolchildren of low forms in rural areas, while about 45 thousand people, including 5 thousand kindergarten children, have not received any aid at all. Muzaffar Chuderi, director of WFP Armenia Office, said that without food aid, the poor families can hardly make both ends meet, while their condition has worsened due to intense cold this winter. M. Chuderi noted that driven by dispair, some people have to borrow food from small shops or neighbors, or have to sell their property. "Many have already sold all property they had, which even more aggravated their state," he said. So far the WFP in Armenia received donations from Switzerland (1 mln USD), the US (1 mln USD), Sweden (534,119 USD), Japan (340 thousand USD), from private donors (223 thousand USD), the Netherlands (152,010 USD), Greece (135,686 USD), Denmark (94 thousand USD) and Canada (43,414 USD).

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