TNT Express airlifts 45 tons of food aid to Somalia

TNT Express on August 8 transported 45 tons of emergency food aid to Nairobi, Kenya, to help the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) feed thousands of children in neighboring Somalia.

A Boeing 767 aircraft containing more than 3,000 boxes of supplementary plumpy, a nutrition product for malnourished children, took off from TNT's hub in Liege, Belgium and landed in Nairobi.

The aid that arrived in Kenya will then be moved to the affected areas in Somalia for distribution.

The shipment should enable WFP to treat 6,000 malnourished children for three months as part of the agency's programme to feed 1.5 million people in Somalia.

Supplementary plumpy, a peanut-based paste packed with vitamins, can be eaten straight from the bag without added water, a rare resource in drought-stricken Somalia.

The sweet paste provides 500 calories per each 92-gram (3.25 ounces) sachet.

The recommended daily dose of supplementary plumpy is about 75 kcal/day/kg, or one sachet per day for a child weighing 7 kg.

The United Nations has declared famine in five regions of Somalia.

The number of people in need of lifesaving assistance is now 3.7 million, out of a population of 7.5 million.

The WFP is already feeding 1.5 million people in the northern and central parts of Somalia and in Mogadishu, which continues to fill up with those fleeing the famine zone.

More than 2 million people in need of food aid are currently inaccessible because of insecurity, as staple cereal prices are at record levels.