(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) GENEVA, Feb 14 (KUNA) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday said that it continues to provide emergency food assistance to people in desperate need in northwest Syria despite escalating hostilities this week caused a 24-hour break in distributions.
"WFP and partners face increasingly challenging conditions in northwest Syria and on Tuesday were forced to temporarily stop distributions because the recent upsurge in hostilities disrupted the movement of trucks carrying supplies into the region from Turkey," said Elisabeth Byrs, Senior Spokesperson of the WFP Geneva Office in a press briefing.
"Heavy bombardment in the city of Atareb over the past couple days spurred significant population displacement. So far, airstrikes and armed clashes in northwest Syria have displaced nearly 800,000 people - 80 percent of them are women and children," she explained.
Families are moving north towards already overcrowded camps near the Syria-Turkey border. More than 140,000 people were displaced in a single week, between February 2-9.
Many families were forced to flee on foot in the middle of winter, with temperatures at night reaching -10 degrees Celsius. Over the past nine years of conflict, people across northwest Syria have already been displaced multiple times and rely heavily on humanitarian assistance. (end)
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