PESHAWAR (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) began an emergency food airlift Friday in preparation for a massive effort to feed more than 1 million refugees fleeing an expected U.S. attack on Afghanistan.
The operation started as some aid agencies warned they might have to use air drops if overland routes are blocked.
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) announced it would send 200 tons of aid to opposition-controlled northern Afghanistan in a huge convoy, leaving the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar Saturday.
To carry supplies down the mountainous terrain into Afghanistan, UNICEF plans to use no fewer than 4,000 donkeys.
Two planes each carrying 50 tons of high-energy biscuits from the U.N. Humanitarian Response Depot based in Brindisi, Italy, landed in Peshawar, the frontier town near the Afghan border in preparation for the expected influx of refugees. (Read photo caption below)
The WFP is also due to bring another 100 tons of biscuits from Brindisi to Peshawar Saturday so they can be trucked to Quetta in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, the closest border crossing to the ruling Taliban's spiritual home of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Shipments are also planned for northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan on Afghanistan's northwest border.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Afghan workers load high-energy biscuits, donated by the United Kingdom, into a United Nations World Food Program (WFP) truck at Peshawar airport, September 28, 2001. WEP began airlifting high-energy biscuits to emergency depots in Pakistan in preparation for the influx of refugees. (Zainal Abd Halim/Reuters)