HIGHLIGHTS
Relief convoys provide food assistance and nutritional support to previously inaccessible areas of Ar Raqqah, Dayr az Zawr, Homs, and Rif Damascus.
U.S.-backed SDF offensive on ISIS-held parts of Ar Raqqah displaces nearly 102,000 people from May 1 to June 15.
USG partners and other humanitarian agencies augment support in response to growing needs in Ar Raqqah.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
USAID/FFP partner the UN World Food Program (WFP) supported a three-truck convoy, which reached Al Hasakah Governorate’s city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on June 22, representing the first overland delivery to the area since December 2015. The resumption of road deliveries will reduce operational costs relative to airlifts and allow the agency to increase the amount and types of assistance it delivers, WFP reports.
WFP also reached previously inaccessible populations in Ar Raqqah and Dayr az Zawr governorates with a 16-truck convoy on June 14. Regular deliveries to these areas had been suspended for more than three years due to conflict and besiegement.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) offensive to retake the northern Syria city of Ar Raqqah from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to drive displacement. The Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster—the coordinating body for humanitarian CCCM activities, comprising UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other stakeholders—verified nearly 102,000 primary and secondary displacements from and within Ar Raqqah between May 1 and June 15.
Humanitarian organizations are responding to the urgent humanitarian needs of conflictaffected people in Ar Raqqah and neighboring governorates, as security conditions allow. In late June, the U.S. Government (USG) provided food items—including beans, flour, lentils, oil, rice, tomato paste, and wheat—that local civil authorities are distributing to approximately 30,000 people in Ar Raqqah’s city of Al Thawrah, also known as Tabqa, and Ein Issa and Karama sub-districts.
Health organizations have recorded 22 vaccine-derived polio cases in Ar Raqqah and Dayr az Zawr in June. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) is working to develop a response plan and initiate polio vaccination campaigns in affected areas.