Syria: WFP to reduce food aid due to funding shortage

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Tuesday that it has to cut food aid to Syria by about half because of a lack of funding.

“An unprecedented funding crisis in Syria is forcing a cut in assistance to 2.5 million of the 5.5 million people who rely on the agency for their basic food needs,” said the WFP. “After exhausting all other options, WFP took the decision to stretch the extremely limited resources by prioritising 3 million Syrians who are unable to make it from one week to the next without food assistance rather than continue assistance to 5.5 million people and run out of food completely by October.”

The agency’s representative and Country Director in Syria, Kenn Crossley, described this as a bleak scenario. “Instead of scaling up or even keeping pace with increasing needs, we’re facing the bleak scenario of taking assistance away from people, right when they need it the most.”

The WFP announcement came one day before the European Union is hosting the seventh Brussels Conference on “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region”.

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