First Shipment Of Russian Humanitarian Aid To Be Delivered To Kyrgyzstan

In the late hours of Thursday, a Russian Il-76 transport aircraft assigned to the Russian Emergencies Ministry, departed from Moscow to Kyrgyzstan. The flight was made as part of the international operation on providing Afghanistan with humanitarian aid. The Russian aircraft has delivered there Niva cars, car repair sets and other equipment needed to coordinate and maintain freight deliveries to Afghanistan from the warehouses of the UN World Food Programme (UN WFP) located in the Kirghiz town of Osh. The aircraft left Osh for Moscow at 8:00 a. m. Moscow time. The next flight has been scheduled for Friday. The International Humanitarian Operation is being held by the UN WFP, the Russian, Kirghiz and Tajik Emergencies Ministries and the British Department for International Development. Within the next two months, auto convoys of the Russian, Kirghiz and Tajik Emergencies Ministries will head from Osh to the Afghan towns of Ishkashim and Faizabad (North-Eastern Badakhshan). These convoys will deliver to Afghanistan 9,000 tons of food, primarily, flour and vegetable oil. Later on, the volume of deliveries will be increased to 16,000 tons. The operation will involve over 300 trucks, with 30 trucks leaving for Afghanistan every day. The first convoy is scheduled to leave Osh on November 10.