DHAKA: A coalition of three UN agencies would jointly provide food, shelter package, and water and sanitation facilities to 14,000 Aila-hit families still living on embankments in Khulna and Satkhira districts.

The Aila-affected families in Dacope and Koyra Upazilas under Khulna and Shymnagar and Ashashuni under Satkhira would be provided with the assistance to mitigate their sufferings in the monsoon season, said a release from the UNDP country office in Dhaka Thursday.

The release added: “A recent Joint UN Multi-Sector Assessment found that around 14 thousand families were still living on the embankments in the two districts after cyclone Aila struck the southern part of the country on 25 May, 2009.”

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Food Program (WFP) and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) with the assistance of UK`s Department for International Development (DFID) have taken the program involving about Tk 32.2 crore.

Under the initiative, WFP will assist 14,000 households with a monthly family food ration consisting of 30kg rice, 5kg pulses and 3kg vegetable oil. A total of about 3000 metric tonnes of food will be distributed for 5 months.

UNDP will distribute plastic sheets, ropes, nails, hammers, knives, umbrellas and bamboos under shelter packages. The shelter package is now also being distributed in partnership with Bangladesh Scouts.

Besides, UNICEF will support those displaced households with basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and nutrition intervention.

Under the nutrition intervention, UNICEF will distribute multiple micronutrient supplements (iron/folate) targeting 10 thousand children aged 6 to 23 months and 10 thousand pregnant and lactating women to reduce acute malnutrition.

BDST: 1720 HRS. August 26, 2010