A helicopter funded by New Zealand's aid agency NZAID has begun delivering supplies from the United Nations World Food Program to areas of Indonesia's Aceh province still isolated after the Boxing Day tsunami, New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said Friday.
The helicopter will enable the World Food Program (WFP) to reach areas that are too remote or difficult to get to via road," Goff said in a statement.
"They will be able to make quick assessments of the situation on the ground and get food and other supplies to those areas where the need is greatest," he said.
The helicopter, a Bell 212, is owned by Jakarta-based National Utility Helicopter (NUH), which has strong links with New Zealand. It was contracted by NZAID for a month in early January and for the past three weeks has been carrying out relief work for various aid agencies in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital which was hardest hit by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.
"New Zealand is not the biggest player involved in tsunami relief efforts but initiatives such as this partnership between NUH, the government, and now WFP, allows us to make a very tangible contribution," Goff said.
New Zealand contributes around 1 million NZ dollars (about 710, US$000) annually to WFP, the world's largest international food aid organization, and provides food aid to 72 million people annually.