Over 1,000 children have suffered food poisoning from school lunches in Indonesia. It's the latest in a series of outbreaks stemming from President Prabowo Subianto's flagship free meals program.

Food poisonings have been reported in four locations in West Java Province since last week. Over 80 kitchens where the meals are prepared were temporarily shut down.

Local media reports say at least 6,400 students across the country have suffered from food poisoning since the program launched in January.

Prabowo has set a target of feeding 82.9 million people with the program by the end of the year. The government has allotted nearly 5 percent of the national budget for this, and plans to double the expenditure next year.

But the poisonings have led to calls for the project to be halted. The government has now pledged to evaluate and improve the implementation.

nhk