The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it will stop its general food assistance programme across Syria at the start of 2024 due to funding shortages.
It will, however, continue to support families affected by emergencies and natural disasters through smaller, more targeted emergency interventions.
This marks the seventh time WFP has announced a reduction in aid to Syria. The latest announcement was on June 13 when it declared a cut in food assistance to about 2.5 million people, down from the previous 5.5 million, citing a funding crisis.
“WFP is now at a crucial turning point in Syria, necessitating difficult decisions,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
The approach WFP had been following was to give smaller amounts of food to try to reach more people overall, the statement said. Despite that, resources remain insufficient, prompting the programme to reassess its approach to food assistance in Syria.
WFP announced that among the programmes it will continue to support is the Livelihoods Support Programme for agricultural families, along with interventions supporting local food systems, such as rehabilitating irrigation systems and bakeries.
“Starting in 2024, the programme’s goal is to transition from broad-scale general assistance to more targeted aid, directing limited resources more effectively to those facing severe food insecurity,” the statement said.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that northwest Syria is home to 4.5 million people, with 1.9 million living in camps for displaced people.
“The decision to reduce WFP assistance has shattered us psychologically and will burden us financially because we cannot afford to buy the food that used to come in our aid basket,” said Yasmin Alhamou, a 23-year-old mother of three living in a displacement camp on the Syrian-Turkish border.
Alhamou and her family fled from Hama when she was a child in 2012 to northwest Syria, moving between camps before settling in a camp near the town of Sarmada in northern Idlib.