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.
UNHCR suspends aid to refugees in Egypt over lack of funding
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UNHCR suspends aid to refugees in Egypt over lack of funding
- Arhem said that without the agency's services, some patients "will not be able to find the means to pay for health care"
- "The drastic reduction in humanitarian funding since the start of this year has led to critical shortages, forcing UNHCR to make impossible choices," the statement said
Thousands stage pro-Gaza rally in Istanbul
- Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory
ISTANBUL: Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory.
Demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures under cloudless blue skies to march to the city’s Galata Bridge for a rally under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine,” an AFP reporter at the scene said.
More than 400 civil society organizations were present at the rally, one of whose organizers was Bilal Erdogan, the youngest son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police sources and Anadolou state news agency said some 500,000 people had joined the march at which there were speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain of his song “Free Palestine.”
“We are praying that 2026 will bring goodness for our entire nation and for the oppressed Palestinians,” said Erdogan, who chairs the board of the Ilim Yayma Foundation, an educational charity that was one of the organizers of the march.
Turkiye has been one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza and helped broker a recent ceasefire that halted the deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.
But the fragile October 10 ceasefire has not stopped the violence with more than more than 400 Palestinians killed since it took hold.
