EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Christos Stylianides, Monday expressed "deep concern" by the World Food Program's (WFP) suspension of food assistance for more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, due to a dramatic shortage of funding.
"This cutting back in food assistance is a stark reminder of the overwhelming impact of this biggest humanitarian tragedy of our times, which has left almost 200,000 people dead and more than 12 million in need of urgent humanitarian assistance," he said in a statement.
"We will allocate immediately an additional amount of 5.5 million euro in humanitarian funding to WFP, bringing our overall funding of WFP for Syria up to 18 million euro in 2014," he said.
"I am following closely the situation," said Stylianides and added that today he is travelling with EU High-Representative Federica Mogherini and EU Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn to Turkey, where they will also visit Syrian refugee camps.
"While Syria is the biggest humanitarian tragedy we face today, the suffering generated by the conflicts in Iraq, Central African Republic and Ukraine, the famine in South-Sudan, not to mention the Ebola epidemic in West Africa all call on our solidarity. We are witnessing a perfect storm of humanitarian tragedies not seen since the second World War," he added.