[refugee-rights] UNHCR launches $103 million appeal to help refugees in West Bank and Gaza

UN AGENCY LAUNCHES $103 MILLION APPEAL TO HELP REFUGEES IN WEST BANK AND GAZA
New York, Jun  6 2003 10:00AM

The main United Nations relief agency assisting Palestine refugees has 
launched an urgent appeal to the international community for $103 million 
to support its emergency activities in the second half of 2003.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the largest 
development and emergency relief agency in the Middle East, said the funds 
are needed to provide food aid, shelter, medical care and counselling for 
children who have been traumatized by violence.

Launching the appeal in Geneva, UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, 
emphasized that even if the recently re-started peace negotiations are 
successful, the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian refugees will remain 
great for the foreseeable future.

"The Palestinian population has suffered so much in the last three years 
that their distress will not quickly be reversed," he said. "The 
Palestinian economy has been gravely damaged and poverty rates have 
tripled; hundreds of families have been made homeless and thousands of 
people have been killed and injured. If the international community wishes 
to encourage peace in the region it must continue working to ease the 
plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank."

With the funds requested the Agency plans to provide basic food aid to 
227,500 families ­ more than 1.1 million individuals ­ who have been 
plunged into dire poverty by the closures, curfews and violence of the last 
32 months. Over $32 million of the appeal is earmarked for emergency food.

To further support family incomes and put the unemployed into useful work, 
UNRWA also plans to use $26 million to provide over 830,000 work days 
through its emergency job creation programme. Since September 2000, more 
than 250,000 Palestinians have benefited directly or indirectly from this 
programme.

The Agency also hopes to provide assistance to the very poorest refugee 
families to enable them to buy shoes and school clothes for their children. 
In addition, the Agency is asking the international community for $1.5 
million to provide remedial education, vocational training and 
extra-curricular activities to help it keep refugee children and youths off 
the streets and away from violence.

Children are also the target of the Agency's ongoing psychological 
counselling programme in its schools. Other emergency health needs include 
mobile clinics for isolated villages and camps in the West Bank and 
increased staff and medical supplies to cope with the 61 per cent increase 
in demand for UNRWA medical services in Gaza.

A key component of the Agency's emergency work is to provide shelter for 
the more than 12,000 refugees who have been made homeless by demolition 
operations during the strife and to help the many thousands more whose 
shelters have been damaged by fighting. If funds are forthcoming, UNRWA 
plans to repair or reconstruct shelters for 4,200 refugee households.



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