WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States has allocated additional $65 million for food assistance to individuals affected by the crisis in Syria and to Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced in a release.
“The USAID announced today a $65 million contribution through the UN World Food Program (WFP) to allow the organization to continue to reach an estimated four million Syrians inside the country and approximately 1.6 million refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt,” the release read,” the release read.
“This new funding from USAID helped WFP avoid having to make additional program cuts, including curtailing all emergency food assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan living in host communities, which would have begun tomorrow,” it added.
The agency stated that the United States remains the single largest donor of humanitarian assistance in the Syrian crisis.
“USAID has now given more than $1.2 billion to WFP for its Syrian operations — including more than $530 million for operations inside Syria and more than $693 million for operations benefiting Syrian refugees,” the release said.
Earlier in July, the WFP announced its fifth cut of food assistance for Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon and Jordan. The agency stated if it does not gather enough funds by August 2015, it would have to suspend all assistance to 440,000 displaced people living outside the refugee camps in Jordan.
About four million people out of 12 million Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, according to the US-based nonprofit organization Human Rights First.
In 2014, the WFP received $5.38 billion in contributions, a 27-percent increase compared to 2013, according to the agency. However the increase of refugees and their needs has proven to be bigger than the rise in contributions.
