The World Food Program (WFP) has announced that the Syrian crisis forced more than 10 million Syrians to live on the brink of hunger as the Assad regime forces continue to bomb and impose blockade on many areas across Syria.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, WFP spokesperson Bettina Luescher affirmed that millions of the Syrian people, following seven years of the crisis, are currently living fierce conditions and suffering the unemployment, collapse of the Syrian currency and insecurity. She noted that the humanitarian situation in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta continue to deteriorate as the area has been subject to crippling siege by regime forces for around four years.
Luescher added that about three million of the Syrian people are living in the besieged and hard-to-reach areas and struggling to survive.
The Assad regime’s siege of eastern Ghouta has caused severe shortages of food and medical supplies as well as caused many children to die of hunger in recent weeks.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) on Monday said it had recorded at least 14 massacres and 53 attacks by the Assad regime and its Russian ally on vital civilian centers in eastern Ghouta, including seven medical facilities since 22 July 2017.
Last year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria rose to 9.4 million, recording an increase of about 716,000 from September 2015.
According to WFP annual 2016 report, more than seven million people were classified as food insecure across the Syria having exhausted their life savings and no longer able to put food on the table for their families.
The WFP called upon parties the conflict in Syria to allow access of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people wherever they are, with no conditions or obstacles in addition to respecting the international humanitarian and human rights laws. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
