The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday it had been forced to slash the number of people it can help prepare for winter in conflict-ravaged Syria and Iraq for lack of funds.
“The whole humanitarian community is facing shortfalls. People are becoming numb,” said Amin Awad, who heads UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa bureau, lamenting that his agency was having to make “tough choices.”
The agency said it was facing a shortfall of $58 million for its efforts to prepare millions of displaced people in Syria and Iraq for winter.
As a result, as many as 1 million displaced people desperate for blankets, kerosene, warm clothes and other items needed to keep warm and dry may have to go without assistance, it warned.
Some 7.2 million Syrians have been displaced within the war-torn country, many of them multiple times. And 1.9 million Iraqis have been displaced this year alone ― a million of them since Sunni extremist group IS began seizing large swaths of the country in June, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” across much of Iraq and Syria.
The agency had planned to help 1.4 million people in Syria and 600,000 people in Iraq, but now expects to reach only 620,000 in Syria and 240,000 in Iraq.
As a result, UNHCR said it was being forced to make “some very tough choices over who to prioritize.” (AFP)
