The United Nations defended its aid funding in Syria on Tuesday after an investigation revealed lucrative contracts were awarded to people close to the nation's President Bashar Assad.
The U.N.'s Syrian contracts came under fire in British newspaper The Guardian which said aid money has gone to a charity set up by Assad's wife and to groups and businesses under U.S. and European Union sanctions.
More than 250,000 people have died and 11 million from a population of 23 million have been forced from their homes in Syria's five-year war that started as an uprising against Assad's rule.