The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is facing its worst financial crisis since its inception, Christian Sanders, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said today.
Sanders made the remarks at his first press conference since taking office in early August on the sidelines of the opening of the IAEA´s advisory committee in the Dead Sea region, west of Amman, on Monday. "The agency is now facing its worst financial crisis since its inception, and as a result donor countries have been directed to pay their dues so that they can do their jobs and keep their services to refugees," he said at the conference. The financial crisis of the United Nations agency, which serves more than 5.3 million Palestine refugees in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, has escalated after the United States suspended its annual $ 360 million support since 2018. "We have a responsibility to the donor countries to make their donations, but equally important are the millions of refugees we need to maintain our services to them," the UN official said. He continued: "We have a cumulative deficit of $ 332 million, we need to recover, and if we do not get it now we need $ 167 million to provide services at the lowest level." "We need $ 80 million a month to continue our services, and next month we need an additional $ 40 million to deliver food and medicine," he said. UNRWA was established by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1949 to provide assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees.
