CARACAS, Venezuela – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly scaling its operations in Venezuela and expanding food assistance aimed at reaching up to half a million people in the areas hardest hit by last week’s earthquakes.

 

Thousands of people have been displaced after two powerful earthquakes struck on 24 June, destroying homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods across at least seven states. Many families are now sheltering in crowded evacuation centers with needs growing for food, clean water, shelter and basic services by the day.

 

WFP has launched food distributions in La Guaira, the worst-affected state, providing parcels that contain one-month’s worth of food rations (cereals, pulses and vegetable oil) for 1,200 people so far and setting up temporary feeding centers in the state. These centers bring humanitarian services together in one location, enabling impacted communities to access food assistance and receive IOM and UNICEF support for other essential needs.

 

“In La Guaira, homes, markets, and food supplies have been devastated, leaving families with little or nothing to eat,” said Stephanie Hochstetter, WFP Country Director in Venezuela. “Right now, in addition to emergency medical services, access to food, water and shelter are the most urgent priorities. WFP teams are working around the clock to reach survivors with the assistance they desperately need.”

 

As the scale of the emergency becomes clearer, WFP is also expanding operations beyond La Guaira into other impacted areas of the country. WFP teams are deploying to assess conditions on the ground and plan for possible further food assistance where it is considered necessary.

 

WFP is also supporting the wider humanitarian response through its logistics capacity, helping to transport supplies, provide storage capacity and improve connectivity in areas where roads, services and infrastructure have been damaged. 

 

WFP has been providing essential humanitarian support in Venezuela for five years, reaching more than 760,000 people in 12 states in 2025. WFP already has more than 3,000 metric tons of food in the country — enough to support more than 10,000 families for two months — and is bringing in additional supplies. In addition, more than 1,400 metric tons of relief items from humanitarian partners are pre-positioned at the WFP-managed United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot in Panama and ready for dispatch.

 

WFP is urgently appealing for an initial USD50 million to provide emergency food assistance to up to 500,000 people over the next three months. The response will also support logistics and emergency communications. WFP has the capacity to scale up to meet the food needs of one million people, if sufficient funding is secured.

 

Access to food was already of top concern for Venezuelans even before the earthquakes hit. Food prices remain far beyond the reach of many households, with the average monthly food basket costing families more than US$600, several times higher than the average household income.

 

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. - (ANA) - 

 

AB/ANA/30 June 2026 - - -