WFP opens emergency transport service to speed flood aid in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady

Mizzima

Communities cut off by flooding in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Region are set to receive faster deliveries of food, medicine and shelter materials after the UN World Food Programme (WFP) opened its transport network to all humanitarian partners responding to the disaster, the agency announced on 2 September.

The flooding adds to a humanitarian crisis already gripping Myanmar, where more than four years of conflict since the military’s February 2021 coup have displaced millions of people and left an estimated 12.4 million people facing hunger nationwide, according to WFP.

The free-to-use cargo transport service is initially focused on Laymyethna, Yekyi and Ngathaingchaung townships, three of the areas hardest hit by this year’s monsoon flooding, with plans to expand to other locations as needs are assessed.

WFP Representative and Country Director in Myanmar Michael Dunford said the agency is now acting as the logistics provider for the wider humanitarian response, not only delivering its own food assistance, so that partner organisations can move supplies to those who need them most. When floodwaters cut off entire communities, he said, logistics becomes “the difference between success and failure of an operation.”

The transport fleet is available for all eligible humanitarian cargo, including food and nutrition assistance, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) supplies, medicines and emergency shelter materials. WFP said the service would run for an initial two weeks and could be extended if transport bottlenecks and humanitarian needs persist.

WFP has also launched a separate emergency food response in Sagaing Region alongside its ongoing relief operations in Ayeyarwady, and said it had reached 15,000 people with emergency food rations across both regions so far.