Life for Syrian refugees is about to get even harder. The United Nations says it will have to slash food rations by 40 percent to over four million of them due to a shortage of funds.

The World Food Programme (WFP) needs $44m (34m euros) for its immediate operations inside Syria.

A funding gap means that the average Syrian will have to survive on 825 calories which is half the daily recommended intake as winter approaches.

Meanwhile the civil war goes on. A monitoring group says that at least 48 people including rebel fighters were killed in Homs province following Syrian government bombardments .

Two days of airstrikes have left women and children among the dead.

And in Aleppo a huge explosion was filmed and up loaded on to a social media site purporting to show an attack targeting government forces.

It is not known how many people were killed.

According to the UN more than 190,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since it began more than three years ago.