UNITED NATIONS: Karen AbuZayd, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), has urged donors to respond to the $43 million appeal it issued last month for funds to help some 27,000 refugees displaced from a Lebanese refugee camp last year.
Since the Nahr Al-Bared camp was destroyed last summer amid fighting between Lebanese government forces and Fatah Al-Islam gunmen, the UNRWA has been providing rental subsidies and food to those who lost their homes. The $43 million fund will help refugees with rent and food for the next 15 months until they can begin moving back into the camp, which will be rebuilt.
According to AbuZayd, only the United States and Norway have so far pledged funds, some $4.3 million and $500,000, respectively. “These pledges will take us only to the end of the year. And then we will be in quite desperate straits as far as feeding and sheltering the people, beginning in 2009,” said AbuZayd.
Regarding the global financial crisis and whether that might add to UNRWA’s funding problems, AbuZayd said late Friday night that most countries had assured the agency of continuing to give what they gave last year. But that will be a problem because refugee numbers are constantly increasing. Also it is not the case for all countries and she noted that Italy, one of the top 10 donors, is cutting back its financial aid by half. UNRWA and the Lebanese government appealed in June for $445 million for rebuilding Nahr Al Bared, the largest project in the agency’s nearly 60-year history. AbuZayd noted that Arab countries have indicated that they are willing to pay for half of the $445 million reconstruction project, but they have not yet come up with their money.
Regarding the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, she said that there had been no real improvement in Gaza, despite the continuing calm between Gaza and southern Israel. It was earlier hoped that it would lead to the opening of the borders and facilitate the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza.
Conditions have also not improved in the West Bank, where the number of checkpoints has now grown to 630, said AbuZayd. “This makes it extremely difficult for people, including UNRWA staff of 350 who live in the West Bank and work in Jerusalem, to get around,” she said.
