Around 2.2 million Syrians risk joining the fast
swelling ranks of the hungry and poor in war-torn Syria, the World
Food Programme warned Monday.
“Without urgent help 2.2 million more could slip further into
hunger and poverty,” WFP said in a statement on Twitter.
The UN agency said in May that a record 9.3 million people in
Syria were food insecure, as spiralling prices and the novel
coronavirus pandemic compound the damage of the country’s nine-year
war.
That figure had leapt from 7.9 million six months earlier.
Most of Syria’s population lives in poverty, according to the
United Nations, and food prices have doubled over the past
year.
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In that same period, Syrians in government-held areas have faced
a fuel crisis, a plummeting Syrian pound on the black market and
steep price hikes.
Damascus has blamed Western sanctions for its struggling
economy.
But analysts have pointed to other factors, including a
financial crisis in neighbouring Lebanon, long a conduit for
dollars to Damascus-held areas under sanctions.
The conflict has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced
millions more from their homes since it started in 2011 with the
brutal repression of anti-government protests.
AFP
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