World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

BEIRUT – A ship carrying wheat from the United States of America -- enough to help feed more than 3.5 million Syrians for one month -- has delivered its cargo to the port of Beirut as part of a massive emergency food assistance operation by the UN World Food Programme (WFP). This is the second ship to bring a US wheat contribution to support WFP’s life-saving work in Syria in less than six months.

AMMAN – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Jordan has completed its first distribution of food vouchers to all Syrian refugees living in Zaatari camp, now home to more than 100,000 people, allowing refugees for the first time to buy the food of their choice from designated shops inside the camp.

AMMAN – As the number of Syrian refugees reaches the two million mark, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) appealed today for humanitarian access inside Syria to avoid a situation in which hunger becomes an additional factor pushing more people to flee the country. In August, the UN food agency was only able to dispatch food for 2.4 million people -- short of its goal of feeding three million people a month -- as a result of the deteriorating security situation.

ERBIL, IRAQ –  As the exodus continues of Syrians into the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the leaders of the UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme paid tribute to the government here for giving refuge to almost 200,000 people, including some 47,000 arriving in the last two weeks. Despite the strain of accommodating such a large number, the regional authorities have opened their border and offered land to accommodate refugees in camps.

ERBIL, IRAQ – A chartered flight has arrived in Erbil carrying urgent relief items for the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees fleeing violence in Syria and crossing into northern Iraq.

If conflict continues, Syria’s food prospects will be seriously at risk in 2014, joint FAO/WFP report finds

ROME/VATICAN CITY – His Holiness Pope Francis this morning granted a private audience to Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).  The meeting took place immediately upon Cousin’s return from Syria and following her recent visit to Israel and Palestine.

GAZIANTEP – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has received a generous contribution of €15 million (US$20 million) from the Government of Germany that will help provide critical food assistance to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who fled the fighting in Syria. The latest contribution brings total German support to WFP’s Syria emergency operations to close to €25 million (US$33 million).

DAMASCUS – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed urgent food aid to vulnerable families in Al-Qusayr where some of the heaviest fighting in Syria has taken place in recent weeks.   Meanwhile the United Nations today announced projected financial costs for the humanitarian operation totalling US$4.4 billion; this figure represents the escalating needs just for the balance of 2013.   The WFP share of this appeal, US$1 billion, will provide food assistance for the growing refugee population outside Syria as well as the increasing numbers of those inside the country without access to food.

DAMASCUS – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Amir Abdulla today wrapped up a two-day visit to Syria to oversee the agency’s plans to scale up operations to feed three million people in July and see first-hand the plight of families fleeing from the fighting.