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NAIROBI, Feb 4 (AFP) - Rwanda will need even more food aid this year than in 1994, in spite of forecasts for a good harvest, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in Nairobi on Saturday.
"After the war there were five million people left in Rwanda who benefitted from a crop planted by the country's full population of eight million," Techeste Zergaber, director of the Rwanda programme of the WFP, a UN agency, said.
"We now have a reverse problem -- more and more people returning to their homes but a smaller harvest with which to feed them."
Zergaber said the situation would be critical for the next six six months, both for displaced persons and refugees who returned after the planting season and for those who had already returned but did not have access to new land.
The WFP needs to find more than 116,000 tonnes of food costing 57 million dollars, over and above the general needs of the region, for its programme for Rwanda for this year.
at/sj/ap
AFP AFP
