By Xinhua Writer Liu Hua
DATU ODIN SINSUAT, the Philippines, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- "Here they come!" Dozens of children shouted cheerfully, jumping up and down on the campus as several trucks appeared at the gate, fully loaded with rice bags.
It was a day for World Food Program (WFP) to dispatch rice, and biscuits, to the war-displaced people temporarily living in the southern Philippine town of Datu Odin Sinsuat.
More than 600 families were sheltered in the town's elementary school, which was turned into an evacuation center after firefights broke out in the Mindanao island between government troops and rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The 12,000-strong MILF has been fighting for a separate Islamic state since 1978. It signed a ceasefire in 2003 with the government, but skirmishes have been going on and off along with the peace talks between the two sides.
Violence escalated in Mindanao and the talks went into deadlock in early August. Hundreds have been killed since then while more than half a million had to flee their homes for safety. Government data showed that currently there are still 68,798 families living in different evacuation centers.
"It's nearly three months since we came to this school. People say fights are still going on nearby our village, and we do not know when we can go back," said Norhata Mantawil, a mother of six children.
"My husband found a job nearby. He is a carpenter and earns 100pesos a day," she said. The wage was about 2 U.S. dollars.
Everyone queuing for the WFP rice held a family access card issued by local government, with which each family could get 25 kilograms of free rice per month. The rice is indeed a lifeline for the people there.
The Mantawils' used to grow rice in their hometown 40 kilometers away before they left home. But now there seems to be no chance that they could harvest one grain of rice this season.
Starting from August, the United Nations agency has dispatched 3,810 tons of rice to most of the war-affected families in different provinces despite the challenge of working in a conflict zone.
Besides, WFP began to distribute high energy biscuits, containing high protein cereals and vegetable fat, to children in the evacuation centers. Each child, 2-6 years old, can get two packs of biscuit every day as a complementary feeding. No wonder the children welcomed the trucks like Santa Claus.
"Food is the foundation for life. Without it, education and medical services among others will fail," said Stephen Anderson, WFP country director and representative to the Philippines.
"It has an immediate impact on the health of a community and is essential to children's physical and intellectual development," he said.
To respond quickly to needs, WFP has built two rice warehouses in the South close to the affected area and most of its 55-member staff are deployed in the field. People in evacuation centers are familiar with the staffers in WFP T-shirts and greet them as old friends.
"We are not working alone here," Anderson said, adding that success in fighting against hunger depends not only on WFP's own capacity, but also on the extent to which the food agency manages to be a partner for others, including national and local governments, other UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.
Occasionally, the agency needs to contact the MILF side to ensure that conflict-affected civilians can get necessary food relief.
"Work in the conflict zone could be hard and dangerous, but that's the nature of our job," Anderson said.
WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency, which gave food to 88 million people last year in 78 of the poorest countries. Its primary aim in the Philippines is to support the Mindanao peace process by providing food aid to meet urgent needs, as an immediate "peace dividend" for conflict-affected communities.
The UN agency has also been implementing a Food for Education initiative in the southern Philippines. Some 110,000 vulnerable schoolchildren living in Mindanao received 12.5 kilograms of rice each month for the full academic year. In assisted schools, the enrollment had increased by 40 percent over the past several years.
For Filipinos in the South, WFP is not only short for "World Food Program," but also indicates the credo of the agency, "We Feed for Peace."
"We hope for peace, so that these families can return to their communities," Anderson said.
But no one can give a schedule for the Mantawils' and other displaced families to go back to their normal life.
"Even peace and stability are restored, it will take a long time for the displaced to rebuild their homes and their confidence in life. WFP is always ready to provide assistance for the people if the government requests," the UN official added.
