Antonio Guterres ROME, Mar 15 (AP): A US-induced half-billion-dollar funding shortfall for the UN relief agency for Palestinians risks cutting critical services that could "push the suffering in disastrous and unpredictable directions," the UN chief warned Thursday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed an emergency funding conference in Rome after the US administration this year slashed tens of millions to the UN Relief and Works Agency, prompting the greatest funding crisis in its 68-year history.
The agency, the oldest and largest UN relief program in the Middle East, provides health care, education and social services to an estimated 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Guterres told the conference, which was sponsored by Jordan, Egypt and Sweden, that investment in UN programs addresses the despair and other factors "that lead to radicalization" among young Palestinians.
Cutting sanitation, health care and medical services in already poverty-wracked and conflict-ridden areas "would have severe impacts - a cascade of problems that could push the suffering in disastrous and unpredictable directions," he warned.
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