Food aid for some 250,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad is on its way in convoys traveling some 2,800 km through the Sahara desert from Libya, UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced Tuesday.

The agency said a team of 58 trucks left Al Khufra in Libya in late December and will reach north-eastern Chad later this month, in a push to reach the refugees before the onset of seasonal rains.

Mamadou Mbaye, WFP Country Director in Chad, said Tuesday the resumption of the Libyan corridor operation is "a race against the clock." "We have five months to deliver food aid to the refugee camps in eastern Chad before the rainy season blocks the roads."

And a second convoy of nearly 100 trucks departed Libya last week.

Since August 2004, Libya has been providing a ground transport corridor from the port of Benghazi through the Sahara to Chad.

Most of the Sudanese refugees in Chad are fleeing violence in Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and another 2.7 million have been forced from their homes since fighting erupted in 2003, pitting rebels against government forces and allied Janjaweed militiamen.

WFP said an additional 215,000 Chadians in the food-deficient Sahelian zone of the country also receive food assistance.

Source:Xinhua