MAF Preparing for Famine Relief Flights in Africa

By Michael Ireland Published: 22nd July 2011

On Wednesday, the United Nations declared a famine in parts of southern Somalia. Across the region, 11 million people are facing a hunger crisis caused by several years of severe drought.

MAF is ramping-up flight capacity in response to the famine in the Horn of Africa. In times of crisis, the Christian relief agency provides flight, communications, and logistics services.
(MAF file photo by Marjan Companjen)

Now, an airplane from the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) program in South Africa is flying to Kenya to reinforce the mission organization’s response to the famine in the Horn of Africa.

Over the past week, MAF has flown leaders from relief and mission organizations, as well as ambassadors from several countries, into the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to assess the situation, according to a media release.

MAF says the organization is also experiencing increasing demand for flights into South Sudan following the country’s independence earlier this month.

“MAF is in contact with a number of relief organizations working in the area,” said John Woodberry, MAF manager of disaster response and security. “We are ramping-up our capacity to respond should the need for relief flights continue to grow.”

With this additional plane, MAF will have seven aircraft in Kenya. To maximize flight capacity, MAF crews have been working into the night so that planes are ready to depart early each morning.

Mission Aviation Fellowship (www.maf.org ) is a family of organizations with a singular mission: to share the love of Jesus through aviation and technology so that isolated people may be physically and spiritually transformed. Serving in 32 countries with more than 140 planes, MAF supports the efforts of some 1,500 Christian and relief organizations.

A significant part of this global network, MAF-US is headquartered in Nampa, Idaho. In addition to its aviation services, MAF-US also provides communication systems and learning technologies to share the gospel and improve the quality of life in remote areas of Africa, Asia, Eurasia and Latin America.