JAKARTA, OCT 3 (AFP/APP): Indonesian families whose children were offered free school meals are joining non-profit groups calling for the flagship government programme to be suspended after thousands of students fell ill from the food.

Cases of food poisoning spiked last week in West Bandung, a district of Java island, when more than 1,300 children were rushed to health clinics after suffering from breathing difficulties, nausea and diarrhoea, local media reported.

  President Prabowo Subianto’s initiative was touted as a way to tackle a child nutrition crisis but the government has instead had to suspend dozens of production kitchens.

  “This programme should be stopped and replaced with cash,” said 50-year-old grandmother Aminah, who goes by one name and whose seven-year-old grandson got sick after a free meal.

   “I’d rather the kids bring their own lunch from home.”

  The disastrous rollout comes as Prabowo is working to move on from violent anti-government protests fuelled by deep inequality in Indonesia, where stunting spurred by malnutrition affects more than 20 percent of children.

   But nine months after the programme began, food poisoning cases have affected thousands of people, prompting mounting calls from non-profit groups for a temporary halt to the multi-billion-dollar scheme.

   In West Bandung, students wailed in pain as they were hooked up to oxygen tanks in a temporary health clinic set up by local government to handle the surge in food poisonings, an AFP journalist saw.

   The National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which is responsible for the initiative, reported 70 food poisoning incidents since the programme began in January until late September.

   More than 6,400 people are affected, the agency said in an update on Wednesday.

The reported cases were the “tip of the iceberg”, said Diah Satyani Saminarsih, founder of the non-profit Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives.

  “The actual number of cases could be higher because the government has not yet provided a publicly available reporting dashboard,” Diah said.

   Part of the problem was the government’s rapid expansion of the programme, she added.