AFP
With the number of displaced populations at an all-time high, the UN refugee agency warned Wednesday that cash shortages were forcing it to slash jobs and scale back activities.
Addressing the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi called on donors to boost support for the growing numbers of people forced to flee their homes due to conflicts, crises and climate change.
“Many humanitarian organisations are facing severe funding challenges,” he said, pointing out that “UNHCR alone is lacking $400 million to end the year with the minimum of needed resources”.
That, he said, was “a shortfall we have not experienced in years, and we are all looking with much concern at 2024.”
“I am very worried,” he told reporters on the sideline of the event.
With devasting wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan stretching its services, the agency has been forced to postpone or reduce some activities, and to slash staffing, he warned.
Globally, he said, “we have had to cut about 900 positions. Remember we are 20,000 staff all together. So it is big, it is almost 5 percent.”
– 114 million displaced –
The cuts come as the number of people displaced worldwide hit a record 114 million at the end of September.
The number have certainly soared even higher since then with fighting erupting in Gaza, and conflicts continuing to rage elsewhere.
Grandi said that is “114 million shattered dreams, disrupted lives, interrupted hopes. It is a figure that reflects a crisis — many crises — of humanity”.
Among them, nearly 36.5 million have fled across borders and are living as refugees, according to UNHCR — a number that has doubled in the past seven years and looks set to rise.
“A major human catastrophe is unfolding in the Gaza Strip,” Grandi warned, lamenting that “so far the Security Council has failed to stop the violence.”
While the war that erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented attack inside Israel on October 7 falls outside of UNHCR’s mandate, Grandi said the agency expects it could spur “more civilian deaths and suffering, and also further displacement that threatens the region”.
He appealed to the international community to “not lose sight of other pressing humanitarian and refugee crises.”
He pointed to millions displaced by conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan, the plight of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and the millions who have fled due to conflict and insecurity in Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and across the Sahel.
– Appeal for ‘unity’ –
He reiterated his criticism of a UK scheme, which is again moving forward after a knife-edge parliamentary vote Tuesday, to send migrants arriving in Britain illegally by boat to Rwanda.
In an interview with AFP Wednesday, UK International Development Minister Andrew Mitchell said he was “astonished” at the UNHCR criticism, adding that Britain would continue funding the agency’s “vital work … where we think they’re acting in support of values and interests which Britain supports”.
During the Geneva forum, some countries vowed to maintain or increase their support.
US Under Secretary Uzra Zeya said her country, which is UNHCR’s top donor, would “provide robust humanitarian financing as we face unprecedented levels of displacement globally”.
