WFP Food Reaches Families In The Besieged Town Of Darayya

Published June 10, 2016

DAMASCUS – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered food for the first time since 2012 to the besieged town of Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, as part of a joint UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) convoy.

WFP delivered a family ration — enough to feed 2,400 people for one month — and enough wheat flour in bags to feed the entire population of 4,000 people for a month. The nine-truck convoy also carried medical supplies and health items late on Thursday to the people of Darayya. WFP food boxes included rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans, bulgur, oil, salt and sugar.

More convoys are planned to all of the 19 besieged locations in Syria as part of the plan for June, following the Government of Syria’s approval to reach all these locations.

Elsewhere, a series of airdrops over the besieged town of Deir Ezzor have delivered a month’s supply of food for the 100,000 people trapped inside the city. WFP plans to continue the flights in the next few weeks to deliver another monthly ration.

In total, during the first few days of June, WFP has already provided life-saving food assistance to more than 1.4 million people across Syria as part of the organization’s monthly plan to reach 4 million displaced and vulnerable people.

In addition, WFP provides assistance — mostly cash-based transfers through “e-cards”— to around 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon Iraq and Egypt.

#               #                 #

WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 80 countries.

For more information, contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Abeer Etefa, WFP/Cairo, Mob. +201066634352
Jane Howard, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 65132321, Mob. +39 346 7600521
Gregory Barrow, WFP/London, Tel.  +44 20 72409001, Mob.  +44 7968 008474
Steve Taravella, WFP/Washington DC, Tel. +1 202 653 1149, Mob. +1 202 770 5993