WFP expands food aid deliveries in Syria’s Raqqa

DAMASCUS — The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) announced Wednesday it has resumed aid deliveries in parts of Syria's Raqqa province for the first time in three years using a newly-opened land route.

The deliveries come as thousands of civilians are being displaced by a US-backed campaign to oust the Daesh terror group from the provincial capital of the same name in northern Syria.

Aid provision to the wider province of Raqqa is complicated by the region's remote location and by the myriad warring factions that control access routes to it.

Until last month, the WFP was relying on flying aid from Damascus to the neighbouring province of Hasakeh and then delivering it to surrounding areas.

The land route instead travels from Aleppo province to the west of Raqqa and has "allowed access for the first time in three years to Al Mansura and other rural areas north of Raqqa city", the WFP said.

Al Mansura is a town west of Raqqa city and was recaptured from Daesh in June. 

"WFP is now delivering food every month to nearly 200,000 people, displaced in eight hard-to-reach locations inside Raqqa governorate as well as other areas in neighbouring governorates," the UN agency said.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters, have been battling since November 2016 to oust Daesh from Raqqa province.

They entered Raqqa city for the first time in June after spending months working to encircle it. SDF forces now control nearly 35 per cent of the one-time Daesh bastion.

Daesh is also under pressure elsewhere in Syria and in neighbouring Iraq, where it lost its largest stronghold of Mosul this week.