World Food Programme in Help Syria Appeal: UN Agency Seeks $6.5 Billion by Benson Agoha

* Syria: Children queeu for food that is running out.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today called for urgent help to raise $6.5 billion to help sort out Syria's food crises.

The UN Agency raised the stakes in their appeal. As winter arrived the middle east and more people are struggling for food, it says it requires the money to tackle the food crisis in 2014.

The news update was provided today on the WFP's website as it plans to feed 4.25 million displaced Syrians within the Syria and around 2.9 million people who fled the country.
WFP's announcement of the expansion today will see it responding with ramped up determination to provide food to over 7 million who have been displaced since the Syrian war started.
The Agency said "Recent assessments show that almost half the population inside Syria is food insecure and close to 6.3 million people need urgent, life-saving, food assistance."

WFP said new plans will include an increase in the size of its food basket to provide more calories per person per day.

It also plans to look into growing reports of malnutrition in Children as other sources of food become increasingly scarce, leading to a loss of weight.

The UN Agency said "Given the importance and urgency of preventing and reducing malnutrition among children in the first 1,000 days of life, WFP will focus its resources on providing nutritional food supplements to 240,000 children aged 6 to 23 months."

It plans to introduce a new new feeding programme in Syrian schools and "most critical governorates mainly Aleppo, Al Hassakeh, and Rural Damascus", where access to education has been worst affected by the crisis.

The scaled up action plan by WFP will also provide cash and voucher assistance to "pregnant women and nursing mothers so Syria’s new generation is not scarred by the legacy of hunger and micronutrient deficiencies", the Agency said.

It also said the vouchers will initially benefit "15,000 vulnerable and displaced mothers" in areas where food markets are functioning but food is out of the reach of people because incomes have fallen.

Syrian Peace talks is scheduled for Wednesday, January 22, 2014.

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