WFP is concerned about the safety of tens of thousands of people who have become displaced due to the violence in northeast Syria. Since 9 October, large numbers of people have fled the towns of Ras al-Ayn in Hasakeh and Tell Abyad in Raqqa, though some have since returned to their places of origin.
Small, densely populated and lying at the heart of a region beset by conflict and political instability, Lebanon is experiencing a profound socioeconomic crisis on top of the protracted Syrian refugee crisis.
Acute food insecurity is set to increase in magnitude and severity in 18 places, according to the latest Hunger Hotspots report.
The report found that many hotspots face growing hunger crises. It highlights the worrying multiplier effect that simultaneous and overlapping shocks are having on acute food insecurity.
Over the past year, WFP’s engineers and partners have been conducting disaster risk reduction activities for cyclone and monsoon preparedness and have steadily improved camp conditions and humanitarian access. Activities focus on improving and establishing roads, strengthening and clearing drains, reinforcing bridges in the camps, and reforestation.
MAPUTO – WFP is extremely concerned about the escalating conflict and deteriorating food security situation in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, where over 300,000 people have fled their homes and villages, abandoning their crops and leaving them completely reliant on humanitarian assistance.
Since November 2017, WFP and the Food Security Sector have been conducting the Refugee influx Emergency Vulnerability Assessment (REVA) annually. The REVA aims to monitor food security situation and vulnerability levels of the Rohingya population living in the camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar district and the adjacent host community potentially affected.
“This is a devastating blow to the Rohingya and an equally devastating blow to the humanitarian community,” said Domenico Scalpelli, WFP Country Director in Bangladesh.
“This is a climate emergency within a much larger complex emergency. Being already displaced, cyclone survivors now have been left with next to nothing, rendering them even more vulnerable,” said Stephen Anderson, WFP Country Director in Myanmar.
Alia stands in line at a WFP food assistance site in Kabul, awaiting the food basket that will be a lifeline for her family of nine.
“Since the government situation changed last year, unemployment has increased, and people’s economic situation has deteriorated,” she says. “Because the economy is not good, people come here to receive food.
“With Afghanistan, it was love at first sight.” Susana Rico, a World Food Programme (WFP) veteran who is now heading the organization’s newly opened office in Venezuela, recalls the days when she landed in Kabul on her first field assignment, as Deputy Country Director. It was 2002 and a new government was being formed.