UNHCR: massive funding gap to meet needs of refugees and IDPs

[Deeq A.]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said it only received 7 percent of the 323.1 million U.S. dollars it wants to meet the needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Ethiopia.

The UNHCR is working to meet the needs of refugees and IDPs despite the funding gap and incidence of armed conflicts in some of the areas it operates, the refugee agency said in its monthly fact sheet on Saturday.

It is engaged in the training of health personnel and the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and essential medicines and materials to strengthen health services in refugee camps in Ethiopia, the UNHCR said.

The UNHCR is also supporting the inter-agency COVID-19 response to the IDP situation by providing PPE and sanitation materials, equipping isolation and quarantine centers and providing community sensitization, it said.

Ethiopia’s confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 145,704 on Saturday, the Ministry of Health said.

Ethiopia is the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, sheltering 801,349 registered refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, as of Jan. 31, 2021.

The country also has several million IDPs, including 2.2 million who were forced to flee the conflict that broke out last November in the northern Tigray regional state.

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