The combined resources of U.N. agencies, the Red Cross and humanitarian organizations are no longer enough to protect the 60 million people displaced by war and persecution around the world, the U.N. refugee chief said.
Guterres said “the trigger” for the mass arrival of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Eritreans in the eastern Mediterranean this year “is the humanitarian funding shortfall.”
“There is an urgent imperative to review the way we finance humanitarian response today, because it is clear that humanitarian resources alone are vastly insufficient to respond to the enormous increase in needs which we have seen in recent years in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere,” Guterres said.