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As U.N. Cuts Food Aid to Refugees, One Family Feels the Pinch

We need the WFP money in order to eat. If we do not get it anymore, I do not know how we will live’.

Written by Marie Kostrz Published on Read time Approx. 2 minutes

On Monday, the World Food Programme (WFP) declared it would suspend its monthly aid to 1.7 million refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. In Lebanon that means roughly 900,000 people registered with WFP will not receive any help in December.

Zouhour lives with her four children in a shop they’ve converted into a small apartment, located in Dekwane, a Beirut suburb. She spoke to Syria Deeply about the WFP suspension and its dire consequences for her family.

Syria Deeply: When did you move to Lebanon?

Zouhour: We arrived in Beirut one year and five months ago. We are from Rastan, a city close to Homs. The area was bombed continuously by the regime, with tanks and planes.

We escaped, then moved from place to place in Syria. Every time the regime bombed a new area we were forced to move. We finally settled in Salamyeh. It is a quiet city without bombings, but there were no jobs and no way to make money there. Because of the war, the economy was very slow. So we decided to go to Lebanon.

I now live here in a small shop with three of my daughters and my son. All the other shops around are rented by families from Rastan. This place is not good: there are leaks in the roof and there is always water everywhere on the floor. It is very humid. We all sleep in one room. One of my daughters got married three days ago and moved in with her husband. She is 16. Life is hard for my four other kids who live with me. They don’t go to school.

Syria Deeply: What does the WFP aid mean to you?

Zouhour: It is all we have. My only son, who is 15, is a day laborer but he never earns more than $260 a month. It is enough to pay the rent, which is $250, but we need the WFP money in order to eat. We have received this aid since we registered with WFP, on arrival in Lebanon.

Why did the WFP not inform us this would happen? I don’t understand. A few months ago, we received an SMS from the organization that told us that the monthly aid would be reduced, to $30 instead of $40. Why aren’t they doing the same this time today?

Syria Deeply: When aid gets cut off in December, what will you do?

Zouhour: I have some family members in Lebanon but the situation is very bad for them too, they are poor and also have a family to support. They cannot help us. There are no other organizations that help us. We just rely on the WFP aid. If we do not get it anymore, I don’t know how we will live.

I wish we could go back to Syria, but it is impossible now. Rastan is under siege. There are so many people we know who died and others who continue to suffer. Sometimes I manage to talk to my family who stayed in Rastan but it’s not always easy, there’s often no network coverage. They don’t have electricity or gas. They have nothing. If we go back to Syria, we don’t even have a place to live.

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