UN shrinks food aid to Syrian refugees in Turkey as funding dwindles

The United Nations food agency said March 6 it had been forced to withdraw aid from nine Syrian refugee camps in Turkey due to a lack of funds, calling on donors to step up and help fill the funding gap.

"Unfortunately, in February, we were forced to ask the Turkish government to take over assistance in nine camps where we could not continue providing aid because we lack funds," said World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Byrs said the WFP was facing a $71-million (65-million-euro) shortfall for its aid program in Turkey this year.

"Getting more funding is really essential," she said.

The U.N. agency needs $9 million each month to provide hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country with food aid, she said.        

It had, in cooperation with the Turkish government, been providing some 220,000 refugees with electronic vouchers in the form of debit cards credited with money, allowing them to purchase the food and supplies they need in stores.

But it was forced to cut the number of recipients to just 154,000 last month, Byrs said.

The Turkish government, which had already been contributing 40 percent of the monthly value credited to the cards, has for now stepped in to close the funding gap.

But the country, which is hosting some 1.7 million Syrian refugees and which has already spent around $4.5 billion to assist them since the Syrian conflict began four years ago, will not be able to foot the bill on its own forever, Byrs warned.

The lack of funds also threatens the WFP's plans to expand the vastly popular "debit card" voucher system to refugees living outside the camps in Turkey.

"Predictability of the financing is...