Aid material, provided by the Greek Ministry of Civil Protection, is loaded on a plane, following the deadly earthquake in Turkey, at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport of Athens, Greece, Feb. 9, 2023. (Credit: Stelios Misinas/Reuters)
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Friday for $77 million to provide food rations and hot meals for 874,000 people affected by the deadly earthquake in Syria and Turkey.
The number in need of aid "includes 284,000 newly displaced people in Syria and 590,000 people in Turkey, which includes 45,000 refugees and 545,000 internally displaced people," the Rome-based organization said in a statement.
The UN also said Friday it was rapidly exhausting the aid stockpiles it had in Syria before the earthquake and needed quick resupply to support the millions affected.
UN agencies said the response to Monday's quake, which has killed at least 22,000 people in Turkey and Syria, would last far beyond the immediate life-saving search-and-rescue stage.
Corinne Fleischer, the World Food Program's Middle East regional director, said WFP had pre-positioned stocks in northwest Syria of ready-to-eat food for 125,000 people and enough family rations, that need cooking, for 1.4 million people for one month.
It has already reached 30,000 people with ready-to-eat food and the rest is being distributed.
"We are running out of stocks and we need access to bring new stocks in," Fleischer said, via video-link from Cairo.
UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, had 30,000 so-called core relief items — mattresses, blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, jerry cans and sleeping mats — and 20,000 tents pre-positioned in Syria before the quake.
The number in need of aid "includes 284,000 newly displaced people in Syria and 590,000 people in Turkey, which includes 45,000 refugees and 545,000 internally displaced...