U.N.: One Million More Syrians to Receive Aid

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The U.N.'s World Food Program said Wednesday it would quickly try to distribute aid to an additional one million Syrians after Damascus gave the green light for the body to work with local aid organizations to reach more of those in need.

Until now most of the agency's food aid was delivered through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which was overstretched and only able to provide help to some 1.5 million Syrians in the war-torn country a month.

To boost the number of people receiving emergency assistance, the Syrian government last week drew up a list of 110 local non-governmental organizations that were allowed to participate in the aid effort, out of which the WFP selected 34 partner agencies, WFP's executive director Ertharin Cousin told a press conference in Geneva.

"This will give us the ability to scale up to reach one million more people," said Cousin, who visited a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey on Tuesday.

Coordinators from different aid agencies and representatives from governments hosting refugees from the violence-wracked country will meet in Amman on Thursday to organize the new distribution procedure, she added.

But Cousin stressed that the aid delivery depended ultimately on the fighting on the ground. "December was the toughest month, we reached only 900,000 people," she said.

The United Nations says that more than 60,000 people have died in the Syria conflict which began 22 months ago with peaceful protests that erupted into deadly violence in the wake of a harsh regime crackdown.

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