UN food agency halves Syria food aid, halts bread subsidy over funding shortages

The World Food Program says it has halved emergency food assistance in Syria due to funding shortages, warning that millions remain vulnerable despite signs of stabilization in parts of the country.

The UN agency’s biggest donor, the United States, has slashed its foreign aid under President Donald Trump, and other countries have also made or announced cuts in development and humanitarian assistance.

The WFP says in a statement that the number of people receiving emergency food aid in Syria fell to 650,000 this month from 1.3 million, while scaling back operations in all 14 Syrian governorates to just seven.

Meanwhile, 7.2 million people in Syria remain acutely food insecure, including 1.6 million facing severe hunger, the WFP says. Many households were already reducing meal portions, eating less nutritious food, or skipping meals altogether, it adds.

“The reduction in WFP’s assistance is driven solely by funding constraints, not by a decrease in needs,” Marianne Ward, the WFP’s country director in Syria, says in the statement.

The WFP also halts a bread subsidy program that supported more than 300 bakeries with fortified wheat flour, helping provide subsidized bread to up to four million people daily in some of Syria’s most vulnerable areas.

The WFP says it requires $189 million between June and November to sustain and restore assistance inside Syria.

It says funding shortages are also affecting Syrian refugees in neighboring countries.

In Jordan, the agency halts cash-based food assistance for 135,000 Syrian refugees living in host communities, while maintaining reduced support for around 85,000 refugees in camps. In Egypt, support for 20,000 Syrians has been reduced, while many refugee households in Lebanon remain heavily dependent on aid.