With 100,000 fatalities, over 1.5 million refugees and no end in sight, the conflict in Syria has created an acute food crisis, according to the latest United Nations reports released Friday. Four million Syrian civilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, have been cut off from the food they need as aid agencies struggle to keep up with the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reports that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program made the announcement following a trip to Syria in May. These agencies estimate that the war-ravaged country will need to import 1.5 million metric tons of wheat for the 2013-2014 season just to keep up with demand.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, wheat production has dropped to 2.4 million metric tons, about 40 percent less than the average harvest of 4 million metric tons before the conflict, according to the U.N. agency reports. Arable land has been destroyed or made inaccessible to farmers due to the battles throughout the country.
“When we say that food security has deteriorated significantly, what we mean is that families are struggling to get enough food to eat on a daily basis — either to produce food or buy food. Because even if there is food in the market, the inflation rate is rampant and that’s causing a lot of hardship,” said Jane Howard, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, in a recent Al-Jazeera interview.
Contributing to the poor outlook for food distribution is the skyrocketing price of petroleum products, including the diesel used by trucks to transport crops to market.
“We’ve heard of price rises for diesel going up 600 percent in Aleppo and that means that the markets are not functioning very well,” Howard said.
The World Food Program reports that it is able to supply 2.5 million Syrians with basic dietary staples each month, alleviating the worst effects of the food crisis. Aid agencies hope to increase supply to 3 million Syrians next month and 4 million by October. The problem is that the situation appears to be worsening, and many areas beset by violence remain cut off from food aid.
“We have a lot of problems with access and we are trying our best,” Howard said.
The demand for aid continues to rise as more Syrians are forced to flee their homes. The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that at least 1.5 million civilians are registered as refugees, with many fleeing to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other nearby countries.
No end in sight
With no clear solution to the Syrian conflict in sight, the international community remains split. Major Western countries, in addition to Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, support the rebels, many of whom are foreign fighters and members of al-Qaida. These key actors in the international community continue to mull more direct forms of intervention after embattled President Bashar Assad appears to have regained some territory, including the key town of Qusayr, that was lost to rebels in earlier battles.
Toward this end, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would begin to provide small arms to rebels last month, but stopped short of calling for a NATO no-fly zone or an airstrike. The influx of foreign fighters has raised the prospect of U.S. arms falling into the hands of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups thought to operate inside Syria.