As Battle For Mosul Ends, WFP Seeks To Give Hope To Thousands
BAGHDAD – Though the battle for Mosul has ended, extensive damage to homes and essential infrastructure has left thousands of displaced families with nothing to return to and in continued need of emergency food assistance to survive.
“Nine months of violent conflict in Mosul has displaced almost one million people from Mosul city and the surrounding areas and to camps in northern Iraq,” said Sally Haydock, World Food Programme (WFP) Representative and Country Director in Iraq. “While we have done our best to support those who arrived to camps weak and hungry, our hearts go out to the thousands of people who lost their lives.”
Since the fighting started in October 2016, WFP has been on the ground providing a consistent lifeline of food assistance to affected people, reaching a total of 1.8 million people within 72 hours of their arrival to camps and other areas, including those who received multiple rounds of assistance at screening sites. WFP has also been providing nutrition support for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition among all children under the age of five.
WFP will continue to focus on meeting the immediate needs of people affected by the conflict so they can share the comfort of family meals until they can safely return home and rebuild their lives. This includes providing support to 820,000 vulnerable people displaced to camps as well as others who have been living in camps across Iraq since conflict erupted earlier in 2014.
While the fight for Mosul has ended, WFP stands ready to support people who could be displaced from areas such as Hawija, Tel Afar and western Anbar where violence continues.
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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 80 countries.
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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Sally Haydock, WFP/Baghdad, Tel. +964 (0) 780 929 9900
Abeer Etefa, WFP/Cairo, Tel. +2010 66634352
Dina El-Kassaby, WFP/Cairo, Tel. +201015218882
Jane Howard, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 65132321, Mob. +39 346 7600521
Bettina Luescher, WFP/Geneva, Tel. +41 22 917 8564, Mob. +41 79 842 8057
Gerald Bourke, WFP/New York, Tel. +1 646 5566909, Mob. +1 646 525 9982