UNICEF: Funding crisis threatens aid
(VOVWORLD) -UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) 's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, said on Friday that UNICEF had received only a quarter of the 1.4 billion USD that it needs to fund emergency operations this year inside Syria and in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.
A major funding gap means that the UNICEF may have to cut "critical and life-saving activities" in support of around nine million children in Syria and surrounding countries.
 Soldiers in Raqqa, Syria on June 11th (Photo: EPA) |
UNICEF said that some of the programs it might be forced to cut included safe water and sanitation services, access to healthcare and nutrition treatments, cash assistance, as well as clothes and blanket distributions. Geert Cappelaere said that without lifeline funding, children would likely have to take "extreme and dangerous survival measures.