Germany to Contribute 20 Mln Euros to UN Aid Agency to Feed Syrian Refugees

German Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Muller stated that the government would donate 20 million euro to the UN humanitarian agency to supply Syrian refugees with food.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The German government will donate 20 million euro ($22.6 million) to the UN humanitarian agency World Food Programme (WFP) to supply Syrian refugees with food, Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Muller said Sunday.

"This means that around 500,000 Syrian refugees in the region can be supplied with food for three months. I hope that other countries will follow our example," Muller told the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.

In July, the WFP said it will cut food assistance for Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon and Jordan due to significant funding insufficiency, making the fifth cut since the unrest in Syria turned into a civil war in 2011.

Over 4 million Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt, according to US-based nonprofit organization Human Rights First. Thousands of Syrians flee to the European Union.

Every fifth person who applied for asylum in the European Union in the second quarter of 2015 originates from Syria, according to EU statistical information agency Eurostat. Germany accepted some 16,300 of the total of 44,000 asylum applications from Syrians to the EU member states from April to June 2015.