Aid plea for Colombian refugees

Colombia's left-wing Farc rebels have continued to fight

Thousands of Colombian refugees who have fled the country's civil conflict are in urgent need of food aid, the United Nations food agency has said.

The World Food Programme called for $1m (£567,000) of emergency donations to help feed 6,000 refugees, including more than 1,350 vulnerable children.

A spokesman for the WFP warned that it would have to cut back operations if the money was not found quickly.

An estimated 30,000 Colombians have fled to Ecuador since 2000.

Fewer than 11,000 have been recognised as refugees there, the UN says.

Refugees cannot work in Ecuador until their asylum claims are successful.

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Colombia says Ecuador has more than enough problems of its own - political instability, recent industrial action and a sluggish economy - and can ill afford the Colombian influx.

Effect of conflict

In a report, the WFP said that refugees faced a greater likelihood of poverty and of discrimination by local people.

The Colombian food programme has been funded until recently with the aid of a $250,000 (£141,000) donation from Denmark.

That money is soon to run out, and the WFP is concerned about the lack of cash pledged to the aid effort.

"The protection of refugees in some parts of the world, especially in Latin America, is critically undermined by the lack of sufficient international visibility and financial support," said WFP spokesman Simon Pluess.

Tens of thousands have died in Colombia during more than 40 years of conflict between left-wing rebels, the state and right-wing paramilitary groups.

The Colombian military, backed by the US, has launched a series of offensives in the south of the country aimed at dislodging rebels from their jungle strongholds.

Marxist guerrillas have responded by melting away and concentrating their forces in the southern provinces along the Ecuadorean border, where - our correspondent says - they sow drugs, attack infrastructure and drive from their homes any who oppose them.

And the harder the Colombian military squeezes the guerrillas, he adds, the more they will flit over the border, driving refugees before them.