Food supplements airlifted into famine-hit Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A plane carrying 10 tons of urgently needed nutritional supplements to treat malnourished children has landed in famine-hit Somalia, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

The airlift is part of a crisis intervention as famine threatens to spread across lawless Somalia.

David Orr, a World Food Program spokesman who flew with the shipment from neighboring Kenya to the Somali capital of Mogadishu, said it was the first airlift of food aid since the U.N. declared a famine in parts of Somalia last week.

Orr said the aid would be distributed to medical facilities to treat the malnourished children.

World Food Program spokeswoman Challiss McDonough said this is first of several planned airlifts in coming weeks. She said Wednesday's shipment of peanut butter-based nutritional paste will treat 3,500 malnourished children for one month.

McDonough said the World Food Program decided to send in the airlift because of an urgent need to treat the growing number of internally displaced children suffering from malnutrition before their condition deteriorates.

She said about 18,000 children are suffering from malnutrition and that the number is expected to grow to 25,000.

The World Food Program said it cannot reach 2.2 million people in need of aid in the militant-controlled areas in southern Somalia because of insecurity.

Al-Shabab -- the most dangerous militant group in Somalia -- said last week it will not allow the aid groups to operate in its territories, exacerbating the drought crisis.