CAIRO: The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday a lack of funding was forcing it to suspend vital aid to refugees in Egypt, including medical care for many fleeing war-torn Sudan.
"The lack of available funds and deep uncertainty over the level of donor contributions this year has forced UNHCR to suspend all medical treatment for refugees in Egypt except emergency life-saving procedures, affecting around 20,000 patients," the UN agency said in a statement.
This includes cancer treatment, heart surgeries, and medication for high blood pressure and diabetes.
UNHCR public health officer Jakob Arhem said that without the agency's services, some patients "will not be able to find the means to pay for health care themselves and they will get sicker, weaker and many will die".
The agency last year received less than half of the $135 million needed to assist more than 939,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan and 60 other countries currently residing in Egypt.
"The drastic reduction in humanitarian funding since the start of this year has led to critical shortages, forcing UNHCR to make impossible choices over which life-saving programmes to suspend or maintain," the statement said, noting that Sudanese refugees will be the hardest hit.
Egypt has hosted more than 1.5 million Sudanese, some 670,000 of whom are registered with UNHCR, as war rages in the neighbouring country since April 2023 between the army and paramilitaries.
"The Sudanese health system was one of the first things that collapsed after the onset of fighting, and many of the families who fled did so with sick members who could no longer find treatment in Sudan," Arhem said.
UNHCR has supported some the most vulnerable, including unaccompanied children and survivors of sexual violence and torture, but these programmes are at risk without urgent funding.