GENEVA: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has declared itself ‘extremely concerned’ by photographs showing its food parcels being handed out in Syria with Islamic State logos on them.
Images circulating on social media show food being distributed from cardboard boxes with ‘Islamic State in Syria’ labels pasted over the WFP logo.
The militant Islamist group, which controls large swaths of Syria and northern Iraq, is known as Islamic State or Islamic State in Syria (ISIS).
‘WFP condemns this manipulation of desperately needed food aid inside Syria,’ said Muhannad Hadi, WFP Emergency Regional Coordinator, in a statement late yesterday. The agency was trying to confirm the authenticity of those images, it said. The photographs seemed to have been taken in Deir Hafr village, about 50 km from Aleppo, where WFP last August delivered enough food to feed 8,500 people for a month. WFP rations are distributed in many areas by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). In September, ISIS raided SARC warehouses where food rations may have been stored, WFP said. (Reuters)
