The World Food Program is being forced to make deep cuts to its operations in Syria, halting a nationwide bread subsidy program and reducing emergency food assistance from 14 governorates to just seven.
More than seven million Syrians are acutely food insecure, including 1.6 million facing emergency conditions. WFP Country Director Marianne Ward said the reductions are driven solely by funding constraints, not a decrease in need. The bread program had supported over 300 bakeries, providing fortified wheat to up to four million people daily.
Children are particularly vulnerable as families skip meals and rely on less nutritious food. The crisis is also spilling into neighboring countries. In Jordan, cash-based assistance for 135,000 Syrian refugees in host communities has been halted. In Lebanon, refugee families face rising costs and shrinking aid. Support for 20,000 Syrians in Egypt has been reduced.
WFP urgently needs $189 million over the next six months to sustain and restore critical operations. Without it, regional director Samer Abdeljaber warns the agency risks reversing years of progress and pushing millions deeper into food insecurity, destabilizing the fragile recovery in Syria and surrounding nations.