UNICEF has joined the appeal for urgent support to the World Food Program (WFP) after the UN agency was forced to cut food assistance for 1.7 million vulnerable Syrians across the region. The Syrian Coalition said that “this cut will contribute to the growing sense of desperation particularly among children, nursing mothers, persons with disabilities and the elderly. Families risk being driven towards destitution and many children might be forced into the workplace to increase family income for the purchase of basic food items. This in turn could lead to more school dropout.” Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director said in a press release that “2014 has been a devastating year for millions of children. Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped, and even sold as slaves. Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.” According to UNICEF MENA, 114,894 children were born as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt since March 2011. Bahra said earlier that “we are extremely concerned by the UN World Food Program’s (WFP) announcement that it is suspending food assistance to 1.7 million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries due to shortages of funds. Those vulnerable refugees desperately rely on this help, especially as they face a harsh winter. With refugees recently freezing to death in Lebanon, the catastrophic consequences of winter have already begun to cause immense suffering.” The suspension of UN vouchers will cause thousands of families to starve to death and will put much more pressure on already strained hosting countries, struggling to accommodate 100,000’s of Syrian refugees. Bahra stresses that the international community has a moral obligation to prevent the looming starvation of hundreds of thousands refugees by providing the necessary funds to keep the UN WFP assistance program running. It is completely unacceptable that refugees, who have fled violence and death in Syria, are left alone to bear unimaginable suffering and fight for survival in such extremely harsh circumstances.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)