The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has started distributing food parcels to over 93,000 Palestinian refugees in the Damascus area of Syria. This much-needed aid was made possible by the generous support and funding of the United Arab Emirates, which donated Dh55 million (US$15 million) in July 2014 to provide food assistance to conflict affected Palestinian refugees in Syria.
The agreement between the UAE and UNRWA provides two rounds of critical food assistance to some of the 460,000 affected Palestinian refugees in Syria. With funding from the UAE, UNRWA has been able to procure and distribute over 630 metric tons of food to refugees thus far, with an upcoming round of distribution planned for this month.
It is a timely reminder of the deep and continuous suffering of the Palestinian refugees remaining in Syria, the vast majority whom now rely on UNRWA for their basic nutritional needs. They are experiencing chronic food insecurity as a result of the collapsed agricultural industry and soaring inflation, which reached more than 89 percent in 2013. More than half of the Palestinian refugee population in Syria has been internally displaced, and most have lost family members, homes, incomes and livelihood. Unemployment across the country has reached 54 percent and most refugees have exhausted any savings they may have previously had.
(Courtesy wam)