1.7 Million Syrian Refugees Face Widespread Hunger as U.N. Funds Dry Up
More than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt are facing widespread hunger at the onset of winter as a severe cash shortfall forced the U.N.’s World Food Programme to suspend food vouchers that were helping to feed hundreds of thousands forced into exile by the conflict, the New York Times reports.
The cutback in aid is one of the most severe ever by an emergency relief provider. It will affect refugees across Syria’s neighboring countries who receive voucher cards from the programs, and those communities struggling to cope with the influx of those exiled from the conflict.
The program “allows refugees to buy food in local shops – to inject about $800m into the economies of those countries hosting them,” the Guardian reports.
The suspension of the voucher program comes nearly three months after the WFP warned funds were drying up and had reached a critical point in its aid effort due to an 89% funding shortfall.
“For the next six months, the WFP requires $412.6 million to support almost 3 million Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries,” the U.N. said in November.
Syrian refugees in camps and informal settlements are poorly equipped for another winter, lacking warm clothes, proper shelter in tents and adequate sanitation.
The food aid cuts “couldn’t come at a worse time,” António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement.
U.S. Rules Out No-Fly Zone Proposal Along Syria-Turkey Border
“The U.S. played down the idea of creating a buffer zone along the Syria-Turkish border Monday, after a media report cited it as a possible concession to Turkey in return for the use of bases to launch attacks on ISIS militants in Syria,” Reuters reports.
“Right now, we don’t believe a buffer zone is the best way to relieve the humanitarian crisis there in northern Syria,” Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.
U.S. officials say they are considering a wide range of proposals put forward by Turkey, but no decision had been made. Ankara has long sought a no-fly zone along parts of northern Syria and has said the removal of Bashar al-Assad was a condition to its agreement to join the U.S.-led strikes on ISIS.
“We have agreed with Mr. President that a solution is needed [on Syria] but the problem is how. It is impossible to reach a solution with Assad,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Earlier this week the Wall Street journal reported that a U.S.-Turkish deal could include the establishment of a safe zone along the Turkish-Syrian border that would be off-limits to Assad’s aircraft.
Analysts claim the proposal would either require “agreement from the Syrian government or taking out Damascus’ advanced air defense systems.”
The comments came as Russian and Turkish leaders met Monday amid opposing positions over how to handle the crisis in Syria.
Syria Claims Terror Groups Used Chlorine as a Weapon
During a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Syria’s Vice Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad “denied his government ever used chemical weapons or chlorine and warned that terror groups are using such weapons,” AP reports.
The meeting came as the OPCW is close to fully eliminating Syria’s deadly chemical stockpile.
According to Mekdad, terrorist groups “have used chlorine gas in several of the regions of Syria and Iraq.”
In October, Iraqi officials said the Islamic State group had used chlorine gas north of Baghdad. The claim came days after Kurdish officials and doctors said they had reason to believe ISIS used some form of toxic gas in Kobani.
‘Angela Kane, the United Nations’ disarmament chief, acknowledged the new risks posed by terrorists,’ the AP reports.
“There is a very distinct threat that has arisen and actually also is being investigated by the OPCW with a fact-finding mission,” she said.
On August 18, almost one year after an attack that killed nearly 1,000 civilians in the rebel stronghold of eastern Ghouta, U.S. officials said the Syrian government’s chemical weapons cache had been successfully destroyed.Two months later, in October, Syria declared it had four chemical weapons facilities that it had kept secret, prompting fears that the weapons could fall in the hands of extremist groups like ISIS.
In a September report, the U.N. fact-finding missions concluded that a toxic chemical was “systematically and repeatedly” used as a weapon in northern Syria earlier this year. It is widely reported that the Assad government is responsible for the chlorine gas attacks on civilians.
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