UN chief seeks urgent funding for Palestinian refugees

UNRWA budget falls $100 million short, Ban Ki-moon calls on donors to help raise funds for ‘pillar of stability’ for Palestinians

By AFP 5 August 2015, 2:25 am

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In this picture provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, two men on their wheelchairs wait to receive food supplies at a damaged street in the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp, on the southern edge of the Syrian capital Damascus, Syria, Thursday, April 24, 2014. (AP)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday raised alarm over a $100 million shortfall in funding for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees and called for urgent donations.

Ban said in a statement that the UNRWA relief agency was “a pillar of stability” for five million Palestinian refugees at a time when the Middle East is in the throes of crises and suffering.

He called “on all donors to urgently ensure that the $100 million required be contributed to UNRWA at the earliest possible date so that the children of Palestine can begin their 2015-2016 school year without delay.”

Ban has personally spoken to several world leaders in the past weeks about the unprecedented funding crisis at UNRWA, his spokesman said.

The United Nations has been struggling to keep several humanitarian efforts afloat in the Middle East — in Syria, Yemen and also Iraq — where donors are under pressure to boost contributions.

The war in Syria, now in its fifth year, has driven more than four million people to flee across the border to neighboring countries, in what the UN refugee agency UNHCR has described as the single largest exodus in a generation.