The UN said Tuesday (September 6th) it has delivered food supplies to more than 30,000 residents of al-Qayyarah for the first time in two years after Iraqi forces expelled the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL), AFP reported.
Iraqi forces on August 25th pushed ISIL out of al-Qayyarah, which had been "inaccessible for over two years", the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said.
The food delivered in the past week included dates, beans and canned food as well as rations of lentils, rice, flour and vegetable oil, enough to last for a month, the WFP said.
The town is "in a dire state" with "black smoke" rising from oilfields around it that were set ablaze by ISIL during fighting, WFP said.
"All of its shops were either destroyed or closed and food stocks were running dangerously low, with people surviving only on wheat from the recent harvest," it said.
"Safe drinking water, electricity and medical services remain nearly impossible to access," it added.
