UN alarmed over images of IS distributing its food

The UN’s World Food Program says it is “extremely concerned” about images circulating on social media showing Islamic State labels affixed to its food aid boxes in Syria.

It says in a statement Monday that it is still trying to verify the photos, but that they appear to have been taken in the northern Syrian village of Deir Hafer, which was last reached by the WFP on Aug. 5, when a convoy delivered 1,700 food rations, enough to feed 8,500 people for a month.

The WFP says it learned in September that IS members raided Red Crescent warehouses in the village where the rations may have been stored.

“WFP condemns this manipulation of desperately needed food aid inside Syria,” says Muhannad Hadi, its emergency regional coordinator for the Syria crisis.

— AP