ECHO donates €5 million for Iraqi refugees in Syria

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) has donated €5 million to help provide food assistance to nearly 218,000 Iraqi refugees in neighboring Syria. “The donation will finance the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional emergency operation, which provides food assistance to Iraqi refugees in the region as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs),” according to a statement published on the UN’s official web site. According to figures released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), an estimtaed 4.4 million Iraqis have been displaced in the aftermath of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of their country. This number includes 2.2 million IDPs, while 2.2 million others left for neighboring countries, mainly Syria, Jordan and Egypt. According to UNHCR statistics, there are about 1.4 million Iraqis in Syria, more than 500,000 in Jordan and smaller figures in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and the Gulf states. The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food aid branch of the United Nations, and the world’s largest humanitarian agency. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children. SS (S) 1