UN agency resumes food rations in Philippine south
MANILA, July 13 (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) resumed distribution of food on Monday to nearly 400,000 displaced people in conflict areas in the southern Philippines after it was stopped a week ago, officials said.
WFP suspended the distribution of food because of a series of bomb attacks in the Mindanao region that led to a travel ban for U.N. and other diplomatic staff.
"All World Food Programme operations in the Mindanao region have resumed as of today because travel restrictions have been lifted," Stephen Anderson, WFP head, told reporters.
"We don't feel like we're being targeted by these attacks."
About 387,000 people have been displaced by fighting which has escalated in the oil and gas-rich marshlands on Mindanao in the last two months, pushing back peace talks stalled since August 2008. [ID:nMAN416748][ID:nMAN494095]
Esperanza Cabral, social welfare secretary, said nearly 1 billion pesos ($21 million) had been spent to provide temporary shelter, food and health services to displaced people in the central region of Mindanao since August 2008.
"There is no humanitarian crisis there," Cabral told foreign correspodents, adding many displaced families in the Lanao and North Cotabato provinces had started to return home.
The WFP has distributed nearly 12,000 tonnes of rice to about 600,000 displaced families in six Muslim provinces in the south of the mainly Catholic state since August 2008, when hostilities started. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jerry Norton)
