“More than a million people have received assistance in this way,” said Vadim Gusev, the Russian charge d’affaires in Kyrgyzstan. “In addition, 400,000 students in 800 schools in the Kyrgyz Republic have received hot meals. We have helped, are helping and will continue to help our sister republic.”
Late last week, Russian diplomats, together with the heads of the Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Migration of Kyrgyzstan and representatives of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), made a follow-up trip to several settlements in Chui region, where food aid projects funded by the Russian government are being implemented.
“We have seen with our own eyes how, thanks to Russian assistance, the WFP Food for Work and Food for Education programmes are being implemented,” Vadim Gusev noted. – We got acquainted with the results of several projects: the rehabilitation of the Tash irrigation canal in the village of Sosnovka, the training of people with disabilities in felt processing in the village of Murak, the rehabilitation of the drinking water supply system in the village of Petrovka. At the local level, people are attracted to work that is in demand in a particular area.
In the village of Sosnovka, for example, 33 low-income families helped clean the irrigation canal. For this, each family received 300 kilograms of flour and 30 liters of oil. Now the entire village draws water from this canal.
In the coming years, according to diplomatic sources, Moscow will allocate another 15 million dollars to food projects of the UN WFP, whose main donor remains the Kyrgyz Republic.
Meanwhile
In May-June 2024 alone, 2,423 tons of fortified wheat flour and 303 tons of fortified sunflower oil arrived in Kyrgyzstan from Russia as humanitarian aid. They are distributed among residents of the republic who are involved in projects to restore infrastructure facilities as well as develop job skills.