The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today it has started moving food aid through a new humanitarian corridor into western Libya to reach areas heavily affected by the fighting.

"Securing this humanitarian corridor is a first vital step in reaching thousands of hungry people affected by the conflict, in particular women, children and elderly people, whose food supplies are running alarmingly short," said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

A first convoy of eight trucks loaded with 240 tons of wheat flour and 9.1 tons of high-energy biscuits – enough to feed nearly 50,000 people for a month – crossed yesterday to western Libya from Ras Jedir on the Libyan-Tunisian border.

The food supplies will be delivered through WFP's partner the Libyan Red Crescent to the crisis-affected population, the agency said in a news release. WFP continues to move food assistance and other relief supplies through different humanitarian corridors by road from Egypt and Tunisia and by sea into the main ports along Libya's Mediterranean coastline.

So far WFP has reached more than 187,000 people in eastern Libya with food assistance and pre-positioned more than 17,500 metric tons of food stocks inside the country and across the region. This is part of a $42 million emergency operation that will provide food assistance to more than one million people in Libya and neighbouring countries.

UN agencies have been expanding their efforts in recent days to tackle what has become a dire humanitarian situation in the North African nation. Nearly half a million people have fled the country in recent weeks since protests erupted and fighting broke out between Government forces and rebels seeking the ouster of Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi, while another 330,000 have been internally displaced.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that an estimated 10,000 Libyans have crossed over from western Libya into the Dehiba area of southern Tunisia in just the past 10 days, with many of the arrivals saying they fled intensified fighting and shelling in the area.