WFP Syria Crisis Media Messages and Guidance 5 July 2013

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1 WFP Syria Crisis Media Messages and Guidance 5 July 2013 KEY MESSAGES As fighting in Syria continues, WFP is appealing for US$724 million to assist up to 7 million Syrians in urgent need of food assistance until the end of the year. These include 4 million people inside Syria and 2.7 million refugees in neighbouring countries in need of food, making this WFP s most challenging, complex and largest emergency worldwide. WFP reached 2.5 million people inside Syria with food in June, is planning to feed 3 million people in July and is ramping up logistics and operational capacity to feed 4 million people by October. WFP needs to raise US$27 million every week to meet the food needs of people affected by the Syrian conflict. US$11 million a week is needed for WFP s operations inside Syria. WFP Syria in numbers: People WFP plans to reach in Syria (in July): 3 million People who received WFP food in June: 2.5 million Syrian refugees registered/awaiting registration (UNHCR): over 1.7 million Refugees who received WFP assistance in May 845,000 Weekly food assistance requirements for Syria and region: US$27 million Weekly food assistance requirements inside Syria US$11 million Latest developments A Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) undertaken jointly by WFP, FAO and the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture in May-June, found that approximately four million Syrians are unable to produce or buy enough food. (See also separate Q and A). Syria s food security situation has significantly deteriorated over the past year and agricultural production will further decline over the next 12 months if the present conflict continues. Poultry production is estimated to be down by more than 50 percent compared with 2011, while sheep and cattle numbers have also declined significantly. Inflation is rampant In 2012, year-on-year inflation rose by 50 percent from The highest price rises (300 percent or more) were reported in Al-Hasakeh, Hama and Aleppo. The price of wheat flour has almost doubled from 2011.

2 Wheat production (estimated at 2.4 million metric tons for this year) is 15 percent lower than it was in 2011/2012 and 40 percent less than the pre-crisis annual average. With serious bread shortages across the country, in April WFP started distributing wheat flour as well as monthly food rations. Since then, WFP has distributed more than 13,000 metric tons of flour across Syria. WFP started food distributions for the month of July on 23 June, ahead of the start of Ramadan, to help families during the holy month. On 14 June, WFP dispatched enough food for 15,000 people (3,000 family food rations) to the besieged city of Rastan in Homs, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the governorate. Attempts to deliver food assistance to the city have been interrupted several times due to clashes. WFP plans to send rations for another 15,000 people to the area as soon as the security situation permits. Following heavy fighting in Al-Wa er area in Homs, WFP sent five trucks loaded with food for 30,000 people. Al-Wa er has a high concentration of displaced people who found themselves trapped in a conflict zone. In June, WFP dispatched food sufficient for 2,500 people to Al-Qusayr near where heavy fighting has left thousands of families trapped and in need of urgent food assistance. This was the first time WFP was able to reach these people, under siege inside Al-Qusayr for months. WFP is also assisting families who fled from Al-Qusayr to villages close by. These families, the vast majority of them women, children and elderly people, have sought shelter in Hesieh (25 km south of Homs) and Debeh village. Operational Challenges: We use over 700 trucks a month to dispatch food to hundreds of distribution points across the country, as well as delivering other life-saving assistance on behalf of the humanitarian community. WFP continues to scale up its operations inside Syria, despite facing immense challenges that vary on a daily basis and increased incidents on the roads. For example: o o o In mid-june, eight WFP trucks carrying 338 metric tons of wheat flour were attacked in Deir Ezzor. The flour was intended for distribution to 13,600 families only four of the trucks were released. Thus, we lost food intended for around 6,750 families. On 29 May, a truck carrying wheat flour to Aleppo, was seized by an armed group in Tal Menes Village, east of Maarat al Noman. After negotiations it was released with most of its cargo intact. On 14 May, 2 trucks carrying wheat flour from Tartous Port to Kissweh in Rural Damascus were stopped at a checkpoint near Sayeda Zainab, and the food was diverted from its destination to people in the surrounding area.

3 General Information: WFP is providing a nutrition supplement (Nutributter) to the governorates of Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakeh in northeastern Syria, aimed at children under 2 years old. The northeast region experienced four years of drought before the conflict erupted in 2011, resulting in high rates of malnutrition among children. The programme currently aims to reach 33,000 children in needy areas. Working with UNICEF, WFP is also providing a specialized nutrition product (Plumpy doz) to prevent and combat child malnutrition. The supplementary feeding programme is expected to reach 50,000 displaced children living in public shelters and will then expand to reach up to 100,000 vulnerable children aged 6 months to 36 months through health centres. In line with the revised humanitarian appeal for Syria (SHARP), WFP will provide Plumpy Doz and Nutributter to up to 300,000 vulnerable children in Syria by the end of the year. WFP has successfully worked with 20 organizations to provide food assistance to 2.5 million people inside Syria and is seeking to reach 3 million in July (1.5 million people reached through SARC and 1 million through 21 local charities). (See also Q and A below). WFP continues to provide storage, handling and transportation services on behalf other agencies in Syria, benefiting so far 13 organizations (ACF, DRC, FAO, IOM, IMC, Première Urgence, Secours Islamique France, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNFPA, UNDP, UNRWA, and WHO). Guidance notes IF ASKED: The revised Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan (SHARP) released on 7 June, says that over 4 million people are displaced within Syria and 6.8 million are in need of all forms of assistance, including food (4 million in Syria are food insecure): WFP plans to reach 4 million people inside Syria starting October until the end of the year. Without an end to the conflict, people will continue to flee and more will need help. WFP is fast adapting to this changing environment but can only assist people as more resources are secured. Without the funding we need, we will not be able to increase the number of people we feed. On Rural Damascus/Moudhamiya: WFP is extremely concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Rural Damascus. In May, WFP provided food for more than 400,000 people in Rural Damascus, but the actual needs in the area are greater. In Muadhamiya area of Rural Damascus (in Darayya), an estimated 5,000 families are stranded and in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The last time WFP was able to reach Muadhamiya was in October WFP has made at least eight unsuccessful attempts to reach the town and is still trying. WFP stands ready to move food, flour and other urgently needed assistance to the town.

4 On our partners: WFP has begun working with additional community-based organisations and charities to scale up our operation. WFP s selection of these charities, (from a list of NGOs accredited by the government), was based on their suitability as partners -- including their capacity, neutrality, impartiality, and geographical presence. We also look into ownership, resources, main donors, partnerships, subsidiaries and affiliations and check against possible links with terrorism, corruption and human rights abuses). On Cross-Border operations from Turkey: All UN organisations, including WFP, must work within international law, which requires the permission of governments to cross national boundaries and enter sovereign territory. Without permission from the government, the UN must get a special decision from Security Council. In the case of the border between Turkey and Syria, OCHA has made it clear that to cross, UN agencies require the agreement of the Turkish government, the Syrian government and groups controlling areas along the border. If full agreement is received from all parties, WFP is ready to respond with cross-border operations. About the sale of WFP food (If asked only): Refugees sometimes resort to selling their food rations to meet an urgent need such as buying medicine. WFP takes this issue seriously and conducts thorough monitoring of the local markets. On an increase in begging WFP field monitors conducting interviews with 105 families for the April quarterly Monitoring and Evaluation report found that the number of households saying they had resorted to begging for assistance had increased from 5 percent in March to 9 percent in April and May. The vast majority (82 percent) of beneficiaries interviewed said they had switched to lower quality foods and a less varied diet to save money. Regional Refugee Response More than 1.7 million Syrians have registered with UNHCR in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, or are awaiting registration. Joint needs assessments in these countries showed that food is a top priority. WFP teams in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are mainly using food vouchers to respond to the needs of vulnerable Syrians. Food vouchers can be redeemed against a list of items, including fresh produce, which is not normally included in food rations. WFP uses vouchers when food is available in the market but people do not have the money to buy it. They also boost the local economy. Since the beginning of 2013, through the voucher programme, WFP has injected almost US$95million into the local economies of Lebanon (over US$39 million), Jordan (over US$30 million), Turkey (US$16.4 million), Iraq (US$6.4 million), and Egypt (over US$2.8 million). Jordan

5 WFP is currently assisting around 400,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan and plans to assist around 900,000 by the end of the year. The number of Syrians crossing to Jordan has increased slowly over the month of June after reaching zero in May from an average of 2,000 daily in previous weeks. WFP is monitoring the situation and is ready to assist in case there is a sudden influx of refugees stranded at the other side of the border. We have around 60,000 meals in stock and the capacity to produce an additional 13,000 meals daily. WFP provides ready-to-eat food to new arrivals at Zaatari refugee camp, many of whom have made a long and risky journey to the Jordanian border. Since the beginning of the year, WFP has distributed over 250,000 welcome meals to newly arrived refugees in Zaatari. UNHCR and WFP have set up around 250 communal kitchens in Zaatari camp to allow refugees to prepare their own meals from WFP food. WFP distributes 28 metric tons of bread a day to refugees in Zaatari (approximately half a million portions of flat bread, daily) through four bread distribution sites around the camp. If you stacked the pieces of bread WFP distributes every morning, they would pile up three times the height of the tallest building in the world (the Burj el Khalifa in Dubai which stands 828 m high). Zaatari camp is now the second largest camp in the world after Dadaab (Kenya). Following a census conducted by ACTED, official figures put the camp population, 75 percent of whom are women and children, at around 116,000. In April, WFP began a school feeding programme in the two schools in Zaatari camp, providing Syrian children attending schools with daily nutritious snacks. The snack consists of a fortified date bar enriched with 11 vitamins and 3 minerals. The programme is currently benefiting over 4,000 children on a daily basis and aims to reach almost 30,000 by the end of the year. In April, a new camp the Emirates-Jordanian Camp opened in Jordan with a current population of around 3,000 refugees. The Emirati Red Crescent provides three daily hot meals per person. In addition, WFP assists people with food vouchers (US$9/month) so they can diversify their food consumption. WFP assists Syrian refugees living in local communities in all Jordanian governorates through food vouchers. The voucher has a value of US$34 per person per month (or 24 Jordanian dinars). In July, WFP will assist a quarter of a million people (250,000 people) through food vouchers in Jordan. Lebanon In Lebanon, WFP is mainly assisting refugees through food vouchers and is currently aiming to reach more than 504,000 beneficiaries. Almost 75 percent of the refugees are women and children, spread throughout the country. WFP covers 80 percent of the country, and 98 percent of the assistance is delivered through food vouchers currently valued at US$27 per person per month. WFP in Lebanon also provides food assistance to vulnerable families who are newly arrived

6 but have not yet registered after one month. The voucher system helps boost the local economy as beneficiaries use it to buy food from local shops. The Government estimates that 1 million Syrians are in the country (1/4 of the population of Lebanon) while over half a million are registered or waiting for registration with UNHCR. Turkey More than 390,000 Syrians are currently registered or waiting to register in Turkey, over 190,000 of them are accommodated in camps, boarding schools or hospitals. Most of the Syrians in Turkey come from Aleppo and other northern cities. WFP and the Turkish Red Crescent (TRC) have provided Electronic Food Cards for a value of around US$12 million to Syrian refugees in Turkey since the operation started in Around US$ 11 million of this was distributed this year. The programme currently reaches over 100,000 people across 13 camps (out of the 17 Government-run camps). In July, WFP will extend food assistance into AdKyaman camp to reach around 110,000 people. Each Syrian family receives an Electronic Food Card loaded with 80 Turkish liras (US$45) per family member per month. The electronic voucher allows people to buy fresh produce and cook their own meals. Iraq WFP provides food assistance in Domiz camp in Northern Iraq and in two camps in Al- Qaim in Al-Anbar governorate. A WFP voucher programme in Domiz camp reached close to 40,000 beneficiaries in June with food parcels and food vouchers worth US$31 per person, per month. WFP also distributed almost 2,800 food parcels to refugees residing in three other camps in Al Qa im. In April, WFP, along with UNICEF, started a school feeding programme in the two camps at Al Qaim and Domiz, providing a monthly supply of fortified biscuits to over 2,000 children. Egypt WFP started distributing food vouchers in February to food-insecure Syrian refugees who fled to Egypt, and aims to help up to 30,000 refugees in June This programme uses paper vouchers and magnetic cards. WFP has so far reached over 27,000 vulnerable Syrians registered with UNHCR living in poorer parts of greater Cairo as well as Alexandria and Damietta. WFP will raise the amount of the monthly food voucher from US$26 to US$30 per person to account for the food price hikes in the country. The total number of Syrian refugees who are registered and awaiting registration in Egypt is over 87,000 and is expected to exceed 100,000 by December In response, WFP aims to double the number of food insecure refugees it is assisting in Egypt over the next six months from 30,000 to 60,000 people.