UN provides food assistance to 100,000 Iraqis as conflict in Mosul intensifies

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has provided food assistance to some 100,000 people fleeing the intensifying conflict in Mosul, including a distribution on Sunday to 25,000 people in Gogjali, while also working tirelessly with its partners to reach families that remain trapped in Mosul city and newly recovered areas.

Despite opening more camps, thousands of families remain in need of urgent care and food assistance. WFP is providing ready-to-eat rations to families, including supplying families of five with a month’s worth of staple foods, including rice, wheat flour, chickpeas, vegetable oil, sugar and salt.

“We are providing food to people who need it regardless of whether they are in camps or have stayed in their homes or surrounding neighbourhoods,” stated Sally Haydock, WFP Country Director in Iraq. “People have had their lives uprooted – it is our duty to ensure that food is not an additional worry for them at this difficult time.”

The struggle of the families to find decent living conditions, affordable food, and medical services continues in many retaken areas.

According to Ms. Haydock, WFP is very concerned about the food security of people trapped inside Mosul, and is currently working with its partners on “monitoring frontlines and working to reach families in need as soon as there is safe access.”

At the moment, the agency says it has enough rations in the Mosul area to provide food for 2.1 million people for three days, and half a million family rations, which could feed 2.5 million people for one month.

Noting that three million people in Iraq have been displaced by conflict since mid-June 2014, WFP says it has food assistance to more than one million vulnerable Iraqis across all 18 governorates.