Approximately 60 percent of the population in Syria “does not have regular access to sufficient safe and nutritious food,” the UN Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, denounced this Thursday, highlighting the economic deterioration in the country. it has led to an increase in hunger and humanitarian needs.
Lowcock explained to the Security Council that “new disturbing data on food security” also published this Thursday by the World Food Program (WFP) show this increase in food insecurity that although it may be “shocking”, it is not “surprising” .
The UN representative has detailed how millions of people resort to “desperate measures” to survive, while more than 70 percent of Syrians say they have incurred new debts and are forced to sell assets and livestock.
Likewise, parents eat less to feed their children, who now work instead of studying, and “those who have run out of options simply go hungry” – more than half a million children under the age of five suffer the effects of delayed learning. growth–.
While the problems of economic and food insecurity are palpable throughout the Syrian territory, Lowcock has been particularly concerned about the situation in the northwest, where nutrition data shows that up to one in three children in some areas suffer the impacts. Irreversible stunting in development and learning.
In these areas, malnutrition has become so normal that parents cannot detect the signs in their own children, according to the testimony of a doctor related by the United Nations representative.
INSECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN AID
Lowcock has emphasized the rise in violence, describing a series of “terrifying bombings” that have killed dozens and injured many more, and even damaged a hospital.
Every day, aid workers in Syria deliver aid in the most difficult circumstances and at great personal risk, the representative lamented.
On the other hand, some doctors, Lowcock says, have expressed concern that cross-border aid to northwestern Syria could be interrupted, to which the representative has emphasized the importance of this aid.
“All humanitarian assistance entering northwestern Syria is delivered across the border” and supports 2.4 million people monthly, he has detailed. Without it, “the situation would go from terrible to catastrophic.”
