Cuts to humanitarian budgets are putting over 11 million refugees at risk of losing access to humanitarian assistance from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency has denounced in a report.
Following major cuts to humanitarian budgets, up to 11.6 million refugees and others forced to flee risk losing access this year to direct humanitarian assistance from UNHCR, according to a report published by the UN Refugee Agency on July 18.
The figure represents about one-third of those reached by the organization last year, UNHCR's Director of External Relations Dominique Hyde was quoted as telling a press briefing in Geneva in a statement.
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10.6 bn dollars needed, only 23 percent has been met
Overall, 1.4 billion US dollars of essential programmes are being cut or put on hold, according to the analysis of UNHCR programmes and funds received this year, the statement noted.
UNHCR funding requirements for 2025 are 10.6 billion US dollars, but at the midpoint of the year, only 23 per cent had been met, it explained.
UNHCR said the cuts have forced it to pause the movement of new arrivals from border areas to safer locations in places like Chad and South Sudan, leaving thousands stranded in remote locations.
In camps hosting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, education for some 230,000 children is at risk of being suspended.
The UN Agency's entire health programme in Lebanon is at risk of being shuttered by the end of the year.
In places like Niger, cuts in financial aid for shelter have left families in overcrowded structures or at risk of homelessness.
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Impact on resettlement and safe return of refugees
Financial aid in Ukraine and across the region has also been slashed, leaving uprooted families unable to afford rent, food or medical treatment. Moreover, UNHCR warned in the report that cuts are also impacting resettlement and the safe and voluntary return of refugees.
It noted how around 1.9 million Afghans have returned home or been forced back since the start of the year, but financial aid for returnees is barely enough to afford food, let alone rent, undermining efforts to ensure stable reintegration.
In several operations, severe funding gaps have curtailed investments in digitizing and strengthening asylum systems and promoting regularization efforts.
In countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Mexico, a lack of legal status means prolonged insecurity and deepening poverty, concluded UNHCR.