As of: 25.06.2021 2:54 p.m.
Syria is experiencing the worst hunger crisis since the conflict began. More than 12 million people do not have enough to eat. And now there is also the threat of an important supply route for aid supplies being closed.
According to the United Nations, there is less to eat in Syria than ever since the beginning of the civil war. According to the World Food Program (WFP), 12.4 million people have trouble eating. That is almost 60 percent of the population. This increased the number of starving people in Syria by 4.5 million within one year.
The WFP therefore pushed for an extension of a UN regulation that allows relief supplies to be brought via Turkey to Syrian regions that are not controlled by the government. “Millions of lives are at stake,” said WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri in Geneva.
The corresponding UN resolution expires on July 10, unless it is extended. However, the UN veto power Russia, which supports Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad, has signaled that it prefers the closure of the last border crossing for aid deliveries. Instead, Moscow wants to handle aid transports via the capital Damascus, which is controlled by Assad.
Food prices soared 247 percent
According to the WFP, the situation has worsened because many people have already had to flee within Syria several times and now have no more money for food that has also become significantly more expensive. Accordingly, prices rose by 247 percent last year. The situation in the northwest is particularly dramatic. There, 2.4 million people depend on food, medicine and other essential relief supplies to cross the nearby Turkish border, said Phiri. Deliveries from Damascus to opposition areas are currently not an alternative.
The aid organization Amnesty International warned that if the transition closes, more than a million people will be cut off from food, water, corona vaccines and life-saving drugs. The area around the city of Idlib is the last major rebel area in Syria after more than ten years of civil war. The food situation could also worsen in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, which is considered the country’s “bread basket”. There the harvest is weak this year due to a drought.
Hundreds of thousands of war victims
A complex and bloody conflict has been raging in Syria since 2011. Rebels and terrorists conquered large parts of the country. President Assad was able to regain most of the lost regions with military aid from Russia and Iran. So far, the UN has tried in vain to find a comprehensive peace solution. Millions of people are on the run, hundreds of thousands have died.