The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has begun to airlift emergency food supplies to famine-struck Somalia.

世界粮食计划署开始向被饥荒困扰的索马里空运救灾食品。

The first flight, with 10 tonnes of nutritional supplements for children, has landed in the capital Mogadishu, an African Union official told the BBC.

Millions in Somalia and across the Horn of Africa face dire food shortages in the worst regional drought for decades.

The Islamist al-Shabab militia, which controls much of Somalia, has banned the WFP from its areas.

The delivery was to have begun on Tuesday but was delayed from leaving Kenya by bureaucratic（官僚的） hurdles.

Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for the WFP, said the 10 tonnes of Plumpy'nut, a peanut-based paste high in protein and energy, would be enough to treat 3,500 malnourished（营养不良的） children for one month.

Given the demand for food aid in Somalia, the delivery is just a drop in the ocean, says the BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross, in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Plumpy'nut was flown from France to Kenya on Monday.

More flights were planned for the coming weeks, Associated Press news agency quoted Ms McDonough as saying.

Fleeing to Mogadishu

The delivery is the first airlift of food aid since the UN declared a famine（饥荒） in two southern areas of Somalia last week.

Similar flights are also due to take aid into the Ethiopian town of Dolo Ado, from where it can be moved across the border into Jubaland, a sliver of land held by Somalia's pro-government forces just west of famine-hit Bakool.

The aid is being moved by plane because sending it by boat would take months, said Ms McDonough.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have fled areas controlled by al-Shabab to Mogadishu and neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia in search of assistance. The weak interim Somali government, backed by an African Union (AU) force, controls only parts of Mogadishu.

A spokesman for the AU force, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, told the BBC the Boeing 737 delivering the 10 tonnes of supplies had landed at Mogadishu's airport.