Activists and directors of camps for the displaced in northwestern Syria have warned of the consequences of the World Food Program’s decision to reduce relief aid to Syrians.
The World Food Program (WFP) announced on June 13 that it was forced to cut assistance to 2.5 million of the 5.5 million people who rely on the agency for their basic food needs, due to lack of funding.
“If the severe shortage of humanitarian aid by the United Nations continues for the residents of the camp, which is inhabited by nearly 200 poor families, a large number of them will be forced to beg at the gates of mosques and markets.”
With these words, Abu Ezzeddine, 50, described the scale of the disaster that threatens the residents of his camp, al-Ghuraba, in the vicinity of the city of Aldana, in addition to the hundreds of camps inhabited by millions of displaced people north of Idlib, in the face of the decline in the volume of relief aid and its suspension this month.
He added that around 129 families within his camp were beneficiaries of the World Food Program and were receiving a monthly food basket.
With the recent decision to cut aid, Ezzeddine said that no family received any humanitarian assistance or a food basket, which puts the lives of the poorest families in the camp and their children under threat.
Al-Amal camp near the Syrian-Turkish border is home to around 230 families. Hajja Maryam, 55, and three of her daughters (two of whom suffer from physical atrophy) are in need of constant care and food.
“We used to receive a monthly relief basket at the beginning of each month, which included three liters of vegetable oil, four kilograms of sugar, the same amount of rice, two kilos of chickpeas, two kilos of beans, and an amount of bulgur and lentils with a bundle of bread every two days. But this month, we have not received our basket, and the limited amount of food we have left is running out,” she said.
According to a recent report by the Syria Response Coordinators organization, which is concerned with humanitarian affairs in northwestern Syria, “the deficit rate in the 2023 humanitarian response plan in Syria has reached unprecedented levels, exceeding 89 percent of the required funding.”
Omar Haj Hammoud, a humanitarian activist in Idlib, noted that the northwestern region of Syria was on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe that may reach the level of famine among the millions of displaced people.
“There is no doubt that a terrible catastrophe will befall the region,” he warned.
One of WFP’s first tasks is “to care for and provide relief to the victims of wars, especially the Syrian war that has displaced millions of Syrians and forced them to live in random camps and without job opportunities capable of securing the minimum requirements for their daily lives,” he warned.
