UN aid convoy enters Rukban refugee camp in Syria

GENEVA, Nov 3 (KUNA) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered lifesaving food aid for the first time from inside Syria to more than 50,000 people stranded at Rukban camp along the Syria-Jordan border.
"The interagency convoy, which is also bringing other forms of humanitarian assistance, set out today and the offloading of supplies will take place over several days," said the WFP in a press release Saturday.
A total of 43 trucks of WFP food rations and wheat flour bags have arrived near Rukban camp, which has been notoriously difficult to reach.
According to the WFP, People stranded in Rukban have had only intermittent access to humanitarian assistance as insecurity in south eastern Syria blocked transport routes and access through Jordan is extremely challenging.
Previously, WFP and other humanitarian actors only reached the camp through complex and costly cross-border deliveries via Jordan. WFP was last able to deliver food into Rukban in January 2018 when aid was delivered from Jordan.
"This interagency convoy is delivering vital aid to women, children and men who have had to survive on very little and without any food assistance for the past eight months," the WFP added.
The WFP said that it needs regular access to the camp to continue to deliver desperately needed food, water and other necessities.
The UN agency has also delivered food assistance from inside Syria for 27,500 people in Al-Lajat area in western Dara'a for the first time since the conflict erupted in the south. In October, the WFP reached newly displaced people on the eastern side of the Eurphrates River in Deir Ezzor governorate, providing food assistance to nearly 30,000 people recently displaced in north east Syria.
The WFP supports the food needs of three million vulnerable people in Syria every month, mainly through food rations that contain rice, wheat, vegetable oil, lentils, sugar and salt. Each ration provides food enough to feed a family of five for one month.
"It is vital for WFP to have safe access to those in need. We hope that all parties will understand that the neutrality of WFP and of the UN in general must be respected. We are working to help civilians and save families," added the statement. According to the WFP there is some 6.5 millions in Syria many of them don't know where their next meal will come from.
Conflict drives hunger and hunger can be one of the drivers of conflict. (end) ta.ibi