São Paulo – This Wednesday (4th), the United States announced that they will donate US$ 55 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) this year, The UNRWA should use the funds to provide food, healthcare, education and humanitarian aid to five million people.
According to the UN Radio, the USA has claimed to “acknowledge the key role” of the UNRWA in assisting refugees and maintaining stability in the region. Still, the United States donated just short of US$ 250 million to the same agency in 2011, which is over four times the amount announced for this year.
Of the US$ 55 million, US$ 29 million will be allocated to actions underway in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Another US$ 24 million will go to emergency programs in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the remaining US$ 2 million will go to refugees who were affected by the conflict between Islamic militants and the Lebanese army, at the Nahr Al Bared camp, in Lebanon, in 2007.
Brazil also makes donations to the UNRWA. On December 15, the country announced a US$ 7.5 million donation to the agency. It was the highest single sum ever donated to the UNRWA by a Latin American country. The amount will be added to another previously announced one, of US$ 960,000, which will be allocated to food and education. The UNRWA was established in 1949 to aid Palestinian refugees, but donations to it have been decreasing each year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
