Kenya upheaval could cut African aid lifeline

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Africans could lose their aid lifeline if fresh violence in Kenya were to disrupt the flow of emergency United Nations supplies, officials said on Tuesday.

U.N. agencies including the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF have long used Kenya as an operational hub, given the normally-stable country's proximity to more volatile nations.

Other aid groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) also use Kenya as a logistics base.

But the turmoil following Kenya's disputed December 27 election threw that network into disarray, grounding flights of humanitarian supplies from Nairobi to Somalia and stranding food aid trucks to Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for days.

While air deliveries from Kenya resumed on Sunday, and sea shipments to Somalia are continuing, truck drivers are insisting on police escorts in some areas of the country, resulting in delays, WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said.

"The situation is still very, very volatile," she said, stressing that any prolonged or intensified upheaval in Kenya could have a stark effect across central and eastern Africa.

"Kenya is a lifeline for our operations. It is crucial that this lifeline is kept open, not only for Kenya but for the surrounding countries where there are thousands of displaced people and refugees depending on our food to survive."

HUMANITARIAN EFFORT

Nearly 500 Kenyans have died in protests and tribal clashes sparked by President Mwai Kibaki's win over challenger Raila Odinga in the election critics say was rigged. Some 255,000 people have been uprooted by the violence.

U.N. officials said that stability in Kenya was critical to their operations in the region, where vast numbers of people are dependent on aid in the face of hunger, disease, and unrest.

Spokesman Ron Redmond said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) distributes supplies through Kenya to hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan, northern Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Refugee populations in all these countries are dependent in one way or another on aid through Kenya," Redmond said.

"In the long run we need to see continued stability in Kenya because it's absolutely essential for the humanitarian effort throughout the eastern Horn of Africa."

UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the crisis was a particular concern to the agency's operations in Somalia, where it is working to provide child immunizations and improve water and sanitation services.

"Stability and calm has to come back to Kenya for us to be able to work," she said.