DAKAR, 27 February 2009 (IRIN) - UN flights that help aid workers and supplies get to hundreds of thousands of people in west and central Africa will stop in March 2009 unless funding is found, UN humanitarian officials say.

Four air operations - for Central African Republic, Chad, Niger and the coastal countries Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - transport humanitarian workers and often emergency aid supplies in areas where roads are poor or non-existent and commercial flights are unavailable.

The air operation connecting the coastal countries recently cut one of two aircraft and the entire operation could be suspended mid-March unless funding is found, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Guinea.

"The humanitarian air services are essential to the support provided to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in several West African countries," said Thomas Yanga, World Food Programme regional director for West Africa. WFP manages the air services.

"They are currently seriously jeopardised and will have to shut down in March if no additional funds are received."

Yanga said the flights are "crucial not only to transport aid workers and implement numerous life-saving operations in the region but also for medical and security evacuations."

At least US$24 million is required to keep all four air operations running, according to WFP.

One-third of the some 1,000 monthly users of the coastal air operation are linked to aid operations in Guinea, according to Philippe Verstraeten, head of OCHA in the country. The operation currently covers Conakry, Kankan, Nzérékoré, Kissidougou, Freetown, Monrovia and Zwedru; flights to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire have been suspended.

"These operations are vital for Guinea at a time when the situation is extremely volatile in the country following the change of government," he told IRIN.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82134

Humanitarian operations are hampered in the region by a lack of access and often by insecurity, according to OCHA.

The largest of the air services is in Chad, where aid agencies are assisting a quarter-million refugees in the east and some 60,000 in the south, along with 160,000 displaced Chadians and some local communities.

Aside from the UN peacekeeping mission and an International Committee of the Red Cross mission in Chad, the UN humanitarian air service provides the only safe and reliable mode of transportation for aid workers in the country, according to WFP. An average of 3,644 people used the flights monthly in 2008.

np/aj

[END]