Hunger crisis threatens Chad as funding for food aid falters

Refugees from Darfur line up to receive rice portions from Red Cross volunteers in Ourang on the outskirts of Adre, Chad. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.