LUSAKA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme will cut vital food aid rations to around 500,000 vulnerable people in Zambia in the coming weeks because of a funding crunch, the organisation said on Tuesday.

The WFP will also halt food assistance in April to 6,000 HIV/AIDS patients on antiretroviral drug therapy (ART) and their family members, as well as 9,500 chronically ill people receiving home-based care, many of whom are also on ART.

WFP Zambia Country Director David Stephenson said the U.N. food agency's resources were running out, forcing it to cut rations to the vulnerable.

"In March or April we will be forced to stop distributing food to some of the most disadvantaged people in Zambia - such as orphans and patients undergoing treatment for AIDS," he said in a statement.

The WFP needs $29 million to fund operations in Zambia until the end of 2007. But with food stocks dwindling, the agency has already begun reducing some rations and is planning a series of massive cuts to its aid operations.

This comes as widespread flooding in Zambia threatens to increase the number of people in need of help and the WFP is scrambling to provide emergency aid to flood and cyclone victims in neighbouring Mozambique.

The WFP has repeatedly chastised rich countries for failing to contribute enough to keep basic aid programmes going in Africa, where HIV/AIDS and regular droughts frequently combine to create disastrous food shortages.

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