US adds $21 million to Syrian aid

The United States will give $21 million more to the World Food Program to provide food and other assistance to Syrians displaced by the ongoing conflict. The announcement was made Wednesday in Jordan by Dr. Rajiv Shah, the head of the U.S, Agency for International Development. Shah said the aid will help more than 780,000 people in Syria who have been driven from their homes by fighting between the regime of Bashar Assad and rebel opposition. It also will be used to support the 240,000 Syrians who have fled to neighboring countries. As of the end of August, the U.N.-run food aid program had received slightly more than half of the $180 million it had requested for humanitarian aid to Syrians, USAID said in its statement. With the additional contribution, the United States has provided $100 million to Syrian humanitarian aid. About 2.5 million Syrians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, the United Nations estimated in a separate statement. Since the uprising began 18 months ago, the United Nations said more that 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died. On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on member states to provide "strong and united support" for Lakhdar Brahimi, the newly appointed special representative for the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis. Brahimi assumes the post vacated by Kofi Annan in August. "The longer [the conflict] goes on, the more difficult it will be to contain, the more difficult it will be to find a political solution, the more challenging it will be to rebuild the country and the economy," Ban told a meeting of the General Assembly.