The Associated Press reports: The cash-strapped World Food Programme has had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from its food voucher program in Middle Eastern host countries this year, including 229,000 in Jordan who stopped receiving food aid in September, a spokeswoman said.

The sharp cutbacks come at a time when growing numbers of Syrians who initially found refuge in neighbouring countries are trying to reach Europe. Since 2011 more than four million Syrians have fled their country’s civil war, most settling in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

Abeer Etefa, a WFP regional spokeswoman, said the world must do more to support refugees in the regional host countries or face increasing migration.

“This is a crisis that has been brewing in the region for five years,” she said. “Now it is getting the attention of the world because it moved one step further from the region to Europe. We have to help people where they are or they will move.” [Continue reading…]