UN – Following a humanitarian breakthrough in delivering aid to a Syrian town inaccessible for more than 18 months, the United Nations food relief agency is now planning possible air-drops for 200,000 people in the Deir ez-Zor area besieged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL/Da’esh.
“It would be a high altitude operation, dropping food with parachutes,” World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Bettina Luescher said today in a briefing to the press.
WFP is considering using an experienced, registered company for the complex operation, but no details could be provided as it is “still in the planning stage,” she said.
The situation in Deir ez-Zor is devastating for families living under siege, where food is sometimes sold at prohibitively high prices, she said.
Air drops are always the last resort because land routes are easier and more cost-effective, Ms. Luescher emphasized.
She also said that life-saving aid had reached more than 21,000 people in Moadamiyeh, an area inaccessible to WFP aid for over a year and a half. Families there received two bags of wheat flower and other food items, including rice, lentils, canned food and cooking oil. WFP had also sent date bars that were fortified with vitamins and minerals.
More than 20,000 people in Foah and Kefraya, 39,000 in Madaya, and 1,000 in Zabadani have also been reached, she said.
Christophe Boulierac, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), informed that 37,000 of the 82,000 people in five besieged towns reached earlier this week by the UN and its partners were children. The aid had reached the towns of Madaya, Foah and Kfreya, Moademiyeh, and Zabadani, he said.
Over two million people continue to face critical drinking water shortages in the Aleppo Governorate, he added.

Source: UN News Center, Feb 20, 2016