A shortage of funds has caused the size of food parcels being sent to Syria to be cut down by a fifth, a United Nations senior official said on Monday.
With the country facing a drought that could put millions of people's lives at risk, the UN food agency warned on Tuesday that there has been a lack of donor funds for the humanitarian crisis within Syria, Agence France-Presse reported.
"WFP is concerned about the impact of a looming drought hitting the northwest of the country -- mainly Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama -- with rainfall less than half of the long-term average and potentially major impacts on the next cereal harvest," said World Food Programme spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs. "This could put the lives of millions at risk if the drought continues."
However, a record 4.1 million people were provided food by the United Nations' World Food Programme inside Syria last month, WFP deputy executive director Amir Abdulla told a news conference.
The target was just short of 4.2 million, Reuters reported.
An exodus of refugees, around 3 million, has also been providing intensifying strain to its neighbors, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"We know that this tragedy, together with the tragedy of the people displaced inside the country, 6.5 million, now shows that almost half of the Syrian population is displaced."
Although $2.3 billion was pledged by donor countries to help Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday, U.N. officials said.
In order for more people to receive food, the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March because of the delay, WFP said.
A UNHCR statement said that only 22 percent funds have been received to date. More than $1.6 billion funds are needed this year for funds to effectively lessen the crisis, Reuters reported.
"Let us not forget that in Jordan, in Lebanon and other countries, we have more and more people unemployed, we have more and more people with lower salaries because of the competition in the labor market, we have prices rising, rents rising - and that the Syria crisis is having a dramatic impact on the economies and the societies of the neighboring countries," Guterres said.
"And so it is very easy to trigger tension, and it is very important to do everything we can to better support both the refugee community and the host communities that generously are receiving them."
Syria was last hit by a major drought in 2008, three years before the country slid into a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and driven nine million from their homes, including the 2.6 million refugees who have fled abroad, AFP reported.
