Correction: UNRWA warns services may cease within three months

On the 2nd of June 2015, we published a news item from Anadolu Agency titled “UNRWA warns services may cease within three months“.

In the item, we stated:

UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl warned that the organisation is facing “unprecedented challenges”. He said that UNRWA suffers a financial deficit of $106.7 million this year and that this might result in the halt of UNRWA’s work within three months.

After contact with the UNRWA’s New York office, we want to clarify that whereas UNRWA does face such a deficit, “it will not halt its work as long as the Agency’s mandate is relevant. We will continue serving all those in need.”

UNRWA’s representative further added that:

When faced with such a deficit, the Agency is forced to substantially reduce individual assistance. If funding levels continue to decline, critical programmes in emergency education, psychosocial support for traumatized children and health care will be threatened, and cash assistance – the central pillar of UNRWA’s humanitarian response – will have to be suspended very soon. 

The statement was made during a press conference in the organisation’s headquarters in New York to mark its 65th anniversary, Krähenbühl called for a lifting of the Israeli siege on the Palestinians. He stressed that the continuation of UNRWA’s work under current circumstances in Gaza, the West Bank and other camps is very difficult.

We apologise to UNRWA for this mistake and to our readers.