{"id":39619,"date":"2019-06-04T12:25:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T12:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39619"},"modified":"2019-06-04T12:25:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T12:25:13","slug":"syrian-fighters-burning-crops-using-food-as-weapon-of-war-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39619","title":{"rendered":"Syrian fighters burning crops, using food as \u2018weapon of war\u2019: UN"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1506256\/middle-east\" readability=\"54\">\n<p>\nGENEVA: Fighters have set fire thousands of acres of wheat and other crops in northwest Syria in a campaign that has turned food supplies in a \u201cweapon of war\u201d and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee, the UN said on Tuesday.<br \/>Satellite images released by campaigners last week showed fields, orchards and olive groves burning in the region where Syria\u2019s Russia-backed army has been assaulting rebels in their last major stronghold.<br \/>Both sides in the fight had blamed each other for the destruction, the UN\u2019s World Food Prgramme (WFP) said.<br \/>\u201cThe latest outbreak in violence in Idlib and north Hama has left dozens of casualties, burned several thousand acres of vital crops and farmland and forced at least 300,000 people to flee their homes,\u201d WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said.<br \/>\u201cCrops such as barley, wheat and vegetables have been destroyed. Destruction to farmland and the agricultural sector is unacceptable,\u201d he told a news briefing in Geneva.<br \/>Farmers had not been able to get to their fields or tend to their remaining crops during the harvest season, as the warring sides vied for control and territory, Verhoosel said.<br \/>\u201cThe most important thing for us, it is not acceptable to take one more time the civilian population hostage, to basically use food, distribution of food as a weapon of war,\u201d he added.<br \/>US President Donald Trump on Sunday urged Russia and Syrian government forces to stop bombing Idlib, following a Friday Kremlin statement that signaled Moscow would continue to back a month-long Syrian government offensive there.<br \/>Fires had also broken out in other areas away from the fighting, amid high temperatures, the WFP said. In all, less than 5% of Syria\u2019s current crop had been affected, it added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GENEVA: Fighters have set fire thousands of acres of wheat and other crops in northwest Syria in a campaign that has turned food supplies in a \u201cweapon of war\u201d and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee, the UN said on Tuesday.Satellite images released by campaigners last week showed fields, orchards and olive groves&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":39620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}