21-Ton Syria Food Aid Drop Lost or Damaged: UN

A 21-ton airdrop of food that was being delivered to starving Syrians in the besieged city of Deir el-Zour, was damaged, lost or fell into an area full of land mines, the U.N. World Food Programme said Thursday. 

The delivery, which was dropped from 23,000 feet, would have been enough to feed 2,500 people for a month, but 10 of the 21 pallets pallets "drifted away and are so far unaccounted for," the agency spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told NBC News.

"This plane had to fly at a high altitude to avoid rockets, missiles and gunfire," she added. "We are disappointed that people who were anxiously waiting to receive this food did not receive it."

Deir el-Zour is a city of some 200,000 in the country's east that is besieged by ISIS. The WFP said it has not been able to reach Deir el-Zour's civilians since March 2014.

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