David Beasly, the head of the World Food Program, issued a stark warning yesterday about the onrushing danger of famine in Syria as the country’s economic collapse, and that of neighboring Lebanon, pushes food supply systems to the brink. The WFP reports that food prices in Syria are now the highest on record after the collapse of the Syrian pound. Prices in the WFP’s food basket increased by 16 percent in the latest monthly tally.
“If Syria continues to deteriorate and the availability of cash, availability of food and supply chain disruption on a country that’s already devastated by 10 years of war, famine could very well be knocking on that door,” told The National of the UAE in an interview. The WFP is already providing food assistance to 4 million Syrians inside Syria and to another 1.6 million refugees outside the country. With the currency collapse, the WFP is now shifting from cash assistance to direct food procurement and distribution. “If we send cash in, they don’t have anything to buy, so we are now having to convert cash to food,” Beasly said. “Syria is deteriorating in a pretty serious way, because the Lebanese economy has collapsed as has the banking system.”
“Those two economies are so linked by tradition and history,” he added. “That has just had a devastating impact and now we’ve got real issues of food security in Lebanon, real serious.”
