The World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday it urgently required 2.3 million U.S. dollars to provide food assistance to refugees in Zimbabwe for the next nine months.

The WFP said in a statement the funding would allow it to provide cash transfers for the general refugee population.

In view of the increased energy and nutrient requirements of chronically ill people in the Tongogara Camp, the WFP would provide such persons with an additional food transfer, it added.

The appeal by the UN agency came at a time when there has been an influx of refugees from Mozambique into Tongogara Camp, with 3,500 Mozambicans fleeing political unrest having been documented in Zimbabwe last year alone.

This follows Zimbabwe's decision to allow asylum seekers settled in the buffer zone along the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique to be moved either further to relatives in land or to Tongogara Refugee Camp.

Tongogara Refugee Camp is currently home to a total of 8,100 refugees from DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and recently Mozambique.

The populations are largely comprised of groups such as single women, single men, the elderly, chronically ill people, and unaccompanied minors with some 5 percent of assisted families being child-headed households.

source: Xinhua