With the end of the Assad regime, and the situation in Syria evolving by the minute amid a power vacuum, there’s an increase in basic needs in a country where nearly 17 million people already depended on aid, UN agencies said on Tuesday.

The highly volatile situation there has created some access challenges, but the World Food Programme (WFP) remains operational inside Syria, supporting those who fled Lebanon in recent weeks or were internally displaced.

For the next six months, WFP needs $250 million to kickstart key supply chain corridors, and ease food insecurity.

Samer Abdel Jaber, WFP’s Director of Emergency Coordination, Strategic Analysis and Humanitarian Diplomacy, spoke to UN News’s Ezzat El-Ferri telling him some operations have had to be suspended.