May 13 (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Wednesday it had halved emergency food assistance in Syria due to funding shortages, warning that \u200cmillions remained vulnerable despite signs of stabilisation in parts of the country.<\/p>\n
The U.N. \u200cagency’s biggest donor, the United States, has slashed its foreign aid under President Donald Trump, and other \u200bcountries have also made or announced cuts in development and humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n
The WFP said in a statement the number of people receiving emergency food aid in Syria fell to 650,000 in May from 1.3 million, while scaling back operations in all 14 Syrian governorates \u200cto just seven.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 7.2 million people \u2060in Syria remain acutely food insecure, including 1.6 million facing severe hunger, the WFP said. Many households were already reducing meal portions, \u2060eating less nutritious food or skipping meals altogether, it added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reduction in WFP\u2019s assistance is driven solely by funding constraints, not by a decrease in needs,\u201d Marianne Ward, the WFP\u2019s \u200bcountry director \u200bin Syria, said in the statement.<\/p>\n
The WFP \u200balso halted a bread subsidy programme \u200cthat had supported more than 300 bakeries with fortified wheat flour, helping provide subsidised bread to up to four million people daily in some of Syria\u2019s most vulnerable areas.<\/p>\n
Syria has faced a deep economic crisis after more than a decade of conflict that devastated infrastructure, displaced millions and battered livelihoods. Although fighting has eased in many parts \u200cof the country since the ouster of former \u200bPresident Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024, aid \u200bagencies say humanitarian needs remain \u200bsevere.<\/p>\n
The WFP said it requires $189 million between June and November to \u200csustain and restore assistance inside Syria.<\/p>\n
It said \u200bfunding shortages were also \u200baffecting Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
In Jordan, the agency halted cash-based food assistance for 135,000 Syrian refugees living in host communities, while maintaining reduced support for \u200baround 85,000 refugees in \u200ccamps. In Egypt, support for 20,000 Syrians has been reduced, while many refugee \u200bhouseholds in Lebanon remain heavily dependent on aid.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Writing \u200bby Feras Dalatey; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 13 (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Wednesday it had halved emergency food assistance in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[38828,16210,38830,7591,38829,864,95,12728],"class_list":{"0":"post-112406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-syria","8":"tag-emergency-food-aid","9":"tag-foreign-aid","10":"tag-funding-constraints","11":"tag-humanitarian-assistance","12":"tag-nutritious-food","13":"tag-president-donald-trump","14":"tag-syria","15":"tag-world-food-programme"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116568950224210540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}