If more funds do not arrive soon, Syrian refugees across the region may stop receiving food assistance altogether starting in September.
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The United Nations said Wednesday that it is slashing food aid for Syrians because of funding shortfalls that are already deepening the suffering of millions of refugees from their country’s protracted civil war.
“Just when we thought things could not get worse, we are forced yet again to make yet more cuts”, saidWFP regional director Muhannad Hadi said.
Refugees have already acutely felt the effects of the reduction, Eid said.
According to a press release issued earlier today, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional refugee operation remains 81 per cent underfunded and requires an immediate injection of $139 million in order to continue helping “desperate” refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq until the end of the summer. In Jordan, WFP fears that if it does not receive funding by August, all aid to Syrians living outside refugee camps will need to be suspended, leaving some 440,000 with no food. However, so far, the lack of funding has forced the program to reduce assistance to 1.6 million Syrian refugees in five countries.
“We are extremely concerned about the impact these cuts will have on refugees and the countries that host them”, Mr. Hadi continued. Fourteen percent of refugee families pulled their children out of school because of the January cut, and 4 percent have sent their children to work as a result of the limited cash aid.
WFP said Syrian refugees in Lebanon would now get $13.50 to spend on food in the month of July.
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The victims of wars in Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan, as well as survivors of the devastating April quake in Nepal and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, are competing for resources with those displaced by Syria’s conflict, now in its fifth year. United Nations funds also aim to help more than 20 million local people in communities hosting refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
