More than half of Syria’s population is food insecure

In a briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria, Ramesh Rajasingham, Head and Representative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Geneva and Director Coordination Division, reported that despite the international community’s pledges of aid to Syria, more than half of the country’s population remains food insecure.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, Rajasingham stressed that this was due to delayed donations by donor countries and that less than an eighth of this year’s humanitarian aid had been funded. Continuing cross-border aid to north-west Syria is an urgent and shared concern, the Director said, underlining that cross-border aid is a matter of life and death for millions of people in north-west Syria. The UN official declared he was extremely concerned about the consequences of the funding shortfalls, noting that around 12 million people in Syria are currently food insecure and 2.9 million are at risk of starvation.

Rajasingham also warned that food aid to 2.5 million people had been halted this month due to a lack of funds and that the standard amount given to aid recipients had been cut in half, warning that problems such as the inability to provide livelihood support, the failure to provide basic services and the increasing number of school drop-outs would have serious consequences. He pointed out that one month after the Brussels conference, it is now crucial to translate the commitments announced into early disbursements.

He added that socio-economic conditions across Syria continue to deteriorate and the currency has fallen to a new record low, noting that there have been significant increases in food and fuel prices, among other economic deteriorations. The price of basic foodstuffs has risen by more than 90 percent this year, putting basic food and other essentials out of reach for millions of families. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) recently warned that the number of women and children in need of food aid had risen by 18 percent in the previous year to nearly 6 million by 2023, and warned that ‘the future of Syria is at stake’.