Abkhazia: Community kitchens for the needy

The ICRC community kitchens programme is rapidly becoming the only source of sustenance for over 7,000 people in Abkhazia. There are now 24 canteens in the region, and the number of beneficiaries is still growing. The objective is simple: to provide people with a hot, balanced meal each day, consisting of soup, a main course, a pound of bread, plus tea and sugar. Once a month the beneficiaries receive a ration of fish. Soap is also distributed monthly, and this winter the ICRC has also handed out anoraks.

It is nearly four years since the end of the fighting between Georgia and Abkhazia, but the Abkhaz people are still feeling the effects of the blockade. Relief supplies are still sorely needed in all areas of daily life, with food and medical care especially lacking. The ICRC, which has been working in Abkhazia since 1992, has constantly adapted its aid programmes to reach the most deprived. Once again, it is the elderly, the disabled, members of minorities and those without any form of social welfare who are suffering the most in this volatile, insecure situation exacerbated by the presence of armed groups under nobody's control.

Since last September the community kitchen programme, launched in 1994, has been funded by the Finnish Red Cross, which has seconded a delegate to run the project. A large proportion of the vegetables used for the meals are produced locally under the ICRC's food and agriculture programme, which aims to restore a measure of self-sufficiency to the people.