Millions of Syrians at risk of going hungry

The UN's World Food Program (WFP) announced on Monday it would suspend food aid to more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees due to a funding problem.

The Rome-based agency said many refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt would "go hungry" if donors failed to provide the $64 million (51 million euros) needed for the distribution of food vouchers through this month.

Harsh winter ahead

"This couldn't come at a worse time," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement. "I urgently appeal to the international community - support WFP now, don't let refugees go hungry."

The agency is also assisting people inside Syria, where it is estimated that over six million people are displaced. Financial resources will last for that program to assist aid recipients until January.

"This funding issue is coming at a very bad time, because we are finally getting access to areas that have been cut off for months, but we are now facing a situation where we can't feed the people we have gained access to recently," WFP spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said.

The agency did not name the countries which were not fulfilling their share of aid donations.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, "We have to strengthen our engagement and give humanitarian aid for the refugees and strengthen the structure of those countries who are hosting the refugees." He and his counterparts from Finland and Sweden told reporters in Copenhagen that their countries could donate more money to feed the refugees.

No end to conflict in sight

The Syrian conflict began in 2011 with peaceful demonstrations against president Bashar al-Assad's regime and has since exploded into a multi-sided civil war, which the UN says has cost nearly 200,000 lives. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that over 4,000 people were killed in the conflict in November alone, including 869 civilians, among them 152 children.

UN agencies estimate that more than half of the Syrian population has become displaced in the war, with three million Syrians having fled into neighboring countries.

sb/bw (dpa, AFP)