Food aid convoys from the United Nations World Food Program have reached displaced Iraqis in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad, bringing the number of people receiving food assistance to over 700,000 people since the start of violence in mid-June.
This week 2,000 displaced families in Karbala received food assistance after WFP sent convoys from Erbil in the northern Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) area – using a corridor along the Iranian border to avoid volatile security in the area. More convoys will depart daily from Erbil to Karbala until all 15,000 families registered there have received assistance.
“The humanitarian situation in Iraq is extremely challenging,” said Mohamed Diab, WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and East Europe. “Thanks to the generous contribution from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, WFP has been prepared to provide food to communities that need it most and are in a very difficult and complex security situation.”
Throughout the country more than 1 million people have been displaced – many without access to food, water or other basic needs. They are living in unfinished buildings, mosques, churches, parks and schools.
“Our team met an Iraqi woman who arrived in Karbala from Mosul in July with her five children and three grandchildren. She said that until she got her food parcels from WFP this week, she had been living hand-to-mouth through random meal donations from citizens,” said Jane Pearce, Country Director for WFP in Iraq.
WFP’s primary food assistance in Karbala, and in most governorates across Iraq, consists of food parcels containing essential items such as rice and cooking oil. Each parcel feeds a family of five for one month. WFP also distributes emergency ready-to-eat rations such as canned food, which provide immediate relief – especially to people still on the move. A third type of assistance is through emergency kitchens providing hot meals to people who fled persecution in Sinjar in the northern Nineveh governorate.