Nafat makes bread outside her makeshift shelter in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.UNHCR/Lynsey Addario
Nafat makes bread outside her makeshift shelter in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
UNHCR/Lynsey Addario
Syrian Refugees Face New Hunger Threat
As winter sets in, a funding crisis forces the World Food Programme to suspend critical food assistance for 1.7 million Syrian refugees.
Tens of thousands of Syrian refugee families, already bracing for yet another winter of misery, now have even more to worry about: hunger.
The World Food Programme announced Dec. 1 that a funding crisis was forcing it to suspend immediately a critical programme providing food vouchers to more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries.
Ertharin Cousin, WFP’s Executive Director, said the agency needed $64 million in December alone for refugee food assistance in host countries surrounding the war-torn nation. Those countries include Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, which together host more than 3 million Syrian refugees.
“A suspension of WFP food assistance will endanger the health and safety of these refugees and will potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighbouring host countries,” said Cousin, in an appeal to donors. “The suspension of WFP food assistance will be disastrous for many already suffering families.”
“Winter is already an extremely difficult period for Syrian refugees,” Guterres said, “but the suspension of food assistance … is going to be devastating.”
In Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres issued an urgent appeal for immediate funding for WFP.
“This couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Guterres, whose agency is investing $102 million across the region to provide non-food aid to help Syrian refugees get through the cold months.
“Winter is already an extremely difficult period for Syrian refugees,” he added, “but the suspension of food assistance at this critical juncture is going to be devastating. It will impact tens of thousands of the most vulnerable refugee families who are almost entirely dependent on international aid. I urgently appeal to the international community: Support WFP now. Don’t let refugees go hungry. ”
Baby Zeino has been surviving on sugar and water since his mother’s milk stopped flowing four days earlier, when the family fled their home in Aleppo, Syria. Infants are particularly vulnerable to any disruption in food supplies. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
Zeino’s grandmother tries to comfort him shortly after their arrival in a tented settlement in Turkey. He is two and a half months old and sick with hunger. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
Fatima, 18, stopped producing breast milk when her family fled their home near Aleppo, Syria. As their village came under siege, most of the women and children were evacuated with the help of a few of the older men. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
The suspension of food aid could be particularly devastating in Lebanon, where more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees – equal to a quarter of the country’s population – are scattered across some 1,700 communities. There are no formal camps, and many of the refugees live in ramshackle settlements, sheds, garages and unfinished buildings. While WFP is responsible for food, UNHCR is providing shelter weatherproofing kits and other winter relief supplies and assistance for some 660,000 refugees throughout the country. For many Syrian refugees, this will be their fourth winter in exile. With each passing year, they become increasingly dependent on outside help as their own resources are depleted.
Lina, a mother of seven in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, depends on food aid for her family. She and her children, some of whom suffer from a skin disease, live in a makeshift shelter in one of thousands of so-called informal settlements throughout the country.
“Our situation is very difficult, helpless, what can I tell you,” Lina said. “If it wasn’t for the food assistance we get every month, I don’t know where we would be. My children are sick, as you can see. Many days I spend less, a lot less, on food to be able to afford medication. A lot, not just a little.”
Iman, 36, lives in a one-room storefront in Tripoli, Lebanon, with her three children: Billal, 13, Tasneem, 10, and Osama, 5. “I don’t want anything in this life. I just want to raise my children in a normal way, to give them clothes and have a washing machine.” UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
Khitan, 40, prepares a meal with her son Rabih, 18, in an unfinished building in Tripoli, Lebanon. Rabih was injured when a shell hit their home in Aleppo and shrapnel tore into his back. Khitan must care for him throughout the day, because the pain renders him virtually immobile. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
This little girl, age 2, is living with her family of seven in the stairwell of an apartment block in Tripoli, Lebanon. A year ago they fled airstrikes on their village in Syria, where her father was a primary school teacher. In this image his youngest daughter eats her dinner on the steps. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
In another tented settlement nearby, 13-year-old Lamia said she and her family arrived from the Syrian city of Raqaa four months earlier with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They don’t even have enough money to buy bread and are staying with relatives.
“In the morning the baker comes here, we pay on credit because we don’t have money,” she said. “We just borrow and borrow to eat. Then the grocer comes, but he doesn’t always sell on credit because we haven’t always been able to pay back. We keep telling them we will pay later.”
Firas, 31, fled Damascus 10 months ago with his wife and daughter. To feed the family, he now collects discarded vegetables each day at a market in Hay El Gharbi, near Beirut, Lebanon. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
Ten months after they fled Damascus, Firas, 31, cooks dinner with his wife, Ghofran, 22, and daughter, Tasneem, 2, near Beirut, Lebanon. They pay just over $100 a month in rent for a small room in a run-down building with a communal toilet. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett
Aya, an eight-year-old refugee from Syria, helps her older sister Houdoud prepare the Iftar meal in their family home in an informal settlement in Dalhamiyeh in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. UNHCR/Shawn Baldwin
Many families skip meals to make their meagre food supplies last longer. In the city of Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, 31-year-old Fadia cares for four young children alone. Her husband was killed when shelling destroyed their home in Syria.
“Sometimes we delay breakfast so we can eat lunch late because we can only afford two meals a day,” Fadia said. “Sometimes it is one meal a day, depending on how much I can afford. Meat we eat once a month when we get food handouts. Every now and then I might buy it so the children don’t miss it too much. Vegetables are very expensive. I can’t buy a lot, only what is necessary. We eat rice, pasta, yogurt, cheese – things like that. The kids like them.”
Khadija, 20, a Syrian refugee, prepares tea for her family in the apartment where they are living in Amman, Jordan. UNHCR/Olivier Laban-Mattei
Amane, 22, queues for food vouchers at Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. Pregnant, she lives in a tent with her son and mother-in-law. WFP says the camps in Jordan will not be affected by the suspension of food aid. UNHCR/Shawn Baldwin
A Syrian child pauses to drink after crossing into eastern Jordan at a remote border post. Upon arrival, the exhausted refugees receive water and food packages from UNHCR and the ICRC before being transported to Azraq camp. UNHCR/Jared Kohler
Nagla Balacam, 12, and her father, Anwar, 55, look for plastic, metal and food in Istanbul’s Kanarya neighbourhood. Refugees from a town near Aleppo, they now live in an abandoned house without electricity or water. Neighbours offer food, but it’s not enough for the large family. UNHCR/Shawn Baldwin
WFP says if new funding arrives in December, it will immediately resume assistance for refugees who use electronic vouchers to buy food in local shops.
But if those new funds don’t come soon, Fadia, Lina, Lamia and their families are in for a long, cold and hungry winter.
