UNRWA: 90% of Palestine refugees live in poverty 

Almost 90 per cent of Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon are living in “unprecedented levels of poverty,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said.

“The status quo of Palestine refugees in Lebanon has reached rock bottom, with most of them living below the poverty line,” UNRWA’s Commissioner General, Philippe Lazzarini, told reporters in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Lazzarini added that the UNRWA donors meeting was “useful to discuss efforts to support the agency, and to reach a stable financial environment.”

Highlighting an “increase in the refugee community’s needs,” Lazzarini noted that 40 per cent of the UNRWA’s students could not “eat breakfast every morning.”

“UNRWA urgently needs between $50 to 80 million to be able to end the year and keep the schools and health centers and other basic services running,” he stressed, adding that the agency needed “$200 million to support digital transformation and support depleted assets.”

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