Over 11 Mn Refugees Risk Losing Aid Because Of Funding Cuts: UN
That corresponds to a full third of the number reached last year by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
In a new report, the agency highlighted a deadly confluence of factors pummelling millions of refugees and displaced people globally: "rising displacement, shrinking funding and political apathy".
"We are right now facing a deadly cocktail," UNHCR's head of external relations, Dominique Hyde, told reporters in Geneva.
"We are incredibly concerned for refugees and displaced populations around the world."
Dramatic aid cuts by the United States and other countries have left UNHCR and other aid organisations facing gaping shortfalls.
UNHCR has said it needs $10.6 billion to assist the world's refugees this year, but so far it has received just 23 percent of that amount.
As a result, the agency said it was seeing $1.4 billion of essential programmes being cut or put on hold.
The impact, Hyde cautioned, risks being that "up to 11.6 million refugees and people forced to flee are losing access to humanitarian assistance provided by UNHCR".
The agency said families were being forced to choose between feeding their children, buying medicines and paying rent.
Malnutrition is especially severe for refugees fleeing war-ravaged Sudan, where the UN has been forced to reduce food rations and nutrition screening, she said, decrying the "devastating impact for children who have fled to Chad".
The cuts have also forced UNHCR to pause the movement of new arrivals from border areas to safer locations in Chad and South Sudan, "leaving thousands stranded in remote locations", the agency said.
Health and education services for refugees are also being scaled back worldwide.
In camps in Bangladesh hosting nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, education programmes for some 230,000 children risk being suspended.
UNHCR also said its entire health programme in Lebanon was at risk of being shuttered by the end of the year.
Last month, UNHCR announced it would need to cut 3,500 staff -- nearly a third of its workforce worldwide -- amid the budget shortfall.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Int'l Business Times
a day ago
- Int'l Business Times
'Mass Grave': Medics Appeal For Aid At Last Working Hospital In Syria's Sweida
In the last barely-functional hospital in Sweida, bodies are overflowing from the morgue, staff said, amid violence that has wracked the Druze-majority southern Syrian city for nearly a week. "It's not a hospital anymore, it's a mass grave," said Rouba, a member of the medical staff at the city's sole government hospital, weeping as she appealed for aid. Dr Omar Obeid, who heads the Sweida division at Syria's Order of Physicians, said the facility has received "more than 400 bodies since Monday morning", including women, children and the elderly. "There's no more space in the morgue, the bodies are out on the street" in front of the hospital, he continued. Fighting erupted Sunday night between Druze fighters and local Bedouin tribes before Syrian government forces intervened on Tuesday with the stated intention of quelling the violence. But in the subsequent events, those government forces were accused of grave abuses against the minority, according to rights organisations, witnesses and Druze groups. The government forces withdrew from the city on Thursday following threats from Israel, which has vowed to protect the Druze. In the hospital on Friday, corridors were engulfed by the stench of the dead bodies, which had bloated beyond recognition, an AFP correspondent said. Visibly overwhelmed, the handful of medical personnel remaining at the facility nonetheless rushed to do their best to offer care to the seemingly endless stream of wounded, many of them waiting in the hallways. "There are only nine doctors and medical staff left, and they are working nonstop," said Rouba, who preferred not to give her full name. "The situation is very bad, we have no water and no electricity, medicines are starting to run out," Rouba continued. "There are people who have been at home for three days and we can't manage to rescue them," she said. "The bodies are on the streets and no one can go out to get them. Yesterday, five big cars filled with bodies arrived at the hospital. "There are women, children, people whose identities are unknown, cut-off arms or legs." The United Nations on Friday urged an end to the bloodshed, demanding "independent, prompt and transparent investigations into all violations". According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the violence has claimed the lives of nearly 600 people since Sunday. Omar Obeid told AFP that three of his colleagues were killed, including one who was "shot dead in his house, in front of his family". Another was killed at point-blank range in her car as she drove through a security checkpoint, he said. The third, "surgeon Talaat Amer was killed while he was at the hospital on Tuesday in a blue surgical gown to perform his duty", Obeid said. "They shot him in the head. Then they called his wife and told her: your husband was wearing a surgical cap -- it's red now."
Int'l Business Times
a day ago
- Int'l Business Times
Over 11 Mn Refugees Risk Losing Aid Because Of Funding Cuts: UN
Massive cuts to humanitarian budgets risk leaving more than 11 million refugees without desperately needed aid, the United Nations warned Friday. That corresponds to a full third of the number reached last year by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. In a new report, the agency highlighted a deadly confluence of factors pummelling millions of refugees and displaced people globally: "rising displacement, shrinking funding and political apathy". "We are right now facing a deadly cocktail," UNHCR's head of external relations, Dominique Hyde, told reporters in Geneva. "We are incredibly concerned for refugees and displaced populations around the world." Dramatic aid cuts by the United States and other countries have left UNHCR and other aid organisations facing gaping shortfalls. UNHCR has said it needs $10.6 billion to assist the world's refugees this year, but so far it has received just 23 percent of that amount. As a result, the agency said it was seeing $1.4 billion of essential programmes being cut or put on hold. The impact, Hyde cautioned, risks being that "up to 11.6 million refugees and people forced to flee are losing access to humanitarian assistance provided by UNHCR". The agency said families were being forced to choose between feeding their children, buying medicines and paying rent. Malnutrition is especially severe for refugees fleeing war-ravaged Sudan, where the UN has been forced to reduce food rations and nutrition screening, she said, decrying the "devastating impact for children who have fled to Chad". The cuts have also forced UNHCR to pause the movement of new arrivals from border areas to safer locations in Chad and South Sudan, "leaving thousands stranded in remote locations", the agency said. Health and education services for refugees are also being scaled back worldwide. In camps in Bangladesh hosting nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, education programmes for some 230,000 children risk being suspended. UNHCR also said its entire health programme in Lebanon was at risk of being shuttered by the end of the year. Last month, UNHCR announced it would need to cut 3,500 staff -- nearly a third of its workforce worldwide -- amid the budget shortfall.
Int'l Business Times
2 days ago
- Int'l Business Times
In Rural Canadian Town, New Risk Of Measles Deepens Vaccine Tensions
In the Canadian town of Aylmer, where Mennonites in traditional dress walk down the main street alongside secular locals, bitter divisions over vaccine skepticism that arose during Covid have intensified with the reemergence of measles. Canada, which officially eradicated measles in 1998, has registered over 3,500 cases this year and the United States is confronting its worst measles epidemic in 30 years, with the UN warning of the global risk as misinformation and lack of funding impact vaccination rates. Different communities in Canada have been hit, but experts link the brunt of the outbreak to anti-vaccine Anabaptist groups in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta. Growing up in Aylmer, a bucolic town surrounded by farmland in southwestern Ontario, Brett Hueston said he didn't give much thought to the differing world views among the town's religious and secular residents. That changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. "I grew up, perhaps naively, thinking that we were all sort of on the same page as a community," said Hueston, 40, whose family publishes the 145-year-old local paper, the Aylmer Express. "Covid really exploited whatever differences there were," he told AFP. Aylmer was a pandemic flashpoint. The town has 13 churches, a substantial number given its roughly 8,000 population. A major congregation -- the Aylmer Church of God that sits on an expansive, well-manicured grounds -- enthusiastically defied some lockdown restrictions. The church's pastor, Henry Hildebrandt, tried to challenge the rules in the supreme court, before agreeing in 2022 to pay a CAN$65,000 ($47,400) fine for gathering people to worship. Hildebrandt said he admitted "to one count of obeying God rather than man," asserting that he had knowingly broken the law. Hueston said "when measles came up, I thought, I know where this is going." "Everybody thinks... Mennonites are (all) anti-vaxers. It certainly isn't the case, but there's certainly a conservative part of this end of the county that is strongly anti-vaxer, and I don't quite understand it," he told AFP. Michelle Barton heads the infectious diseases division at the Children's Hospital at the London Health Sciences Center, southwestern Ontario's main referral hospital. She's seen some of the most serious pediatric measles cases this year and told AFP observing the recurrence of a once eradicated virus has been "difficult to watch." She noted that not every case can be tied to unvaccinated Mennonites. Infections have also occurred among new immigrants from the developing world who, for various reasons, did not keep up with immunizations after settling in Canada, including due to an acute family doctor shortage. Barton said it was long clear "pockets of unvaccinated people" made the region vulnerable to measles. She recounted a range of attitudes towards vaccines among Mennonite families. Some mothers, when confronted with how sick their children had become, voiced openness to vaccinating their other children, only to back away, fearing consequences from their husband or pastor, Barton told AFP. "They don't want to go against the grain of their culture, and they don't want to go against the (church) elders," she said. She also voiced sympathy for a Mennonite community that faced "resentment" from some healthcare workers, who at times displayed frustration over having to respond to an entirely preventable outbreak. Barton said she hoped the relationships forged between medical staff and vaccine-skeptical families could improve acceptance, and she encouraged public health officials to persist in trying to bring church leaders on board. For Alon Vaisman, an infectious diseases doctor at Ontario's University Health Network, officials must keep trying, regardless of opposition. "From a public health perspective we ought not to accept anything to be insurmountable when it comes to vaccine campaigns." Child vaccination rates remain below where they need to be, making another viral outbreak, including measles, possible, Vaisman said. "There really needs to be more of an effort," he told AFP, conceding the difficulty of finding a successful path forward. "You're fighting against the wall of disinformation and lies," he said. Brett Hueston, publisher of the Aylmer Express newspaper AFP Paediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Michelle Barton-Forbes at the London Health Sciences Centre in London, Canada AFP A sign outside of Southwestern Public Health in St. Thomas, Canada AFP
