Cash-strapped WFP suspends food aid for 1.7 million Syrian refugees

Up to 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt will temporarily have no access to food assistance after the World Food Program failed to secure enough funds to continue its operations in December, the U.N. agency announced Monday.

WFP needs $64 million to provide the refugees with food vouchers, and explained it can resume the program immediately as soon as it receives the money from donors.

If not, the consequences will be severe as we are in the middle of winter, Ertharin Cousin, the U.N. agency’s executive director, said in an appeal to donors. Cousin also warned that 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 neighboring host countries” and “be disastrous for many already suffering families.”