UN Relief and Works Agency says it will run out of money in September, jeopardising its ability to cater for people in Yarmouk camp near Damascus

The UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees is facing its biggest funding crisis since it was set up in 1948, jeopardising its ability to educate a new generation of children and to cater for the most destitute people in the Yarmouk camp near Damascus.

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The UN Relief and Works Agency said it will run out of money in September because of a $100m (£64m) gap in its funding. Its commissioner general, Pierre Krähenbühl, is in London on Friday to try and secure funding from donors, including the EU and the UK government.

Speaking to the Guardian he said that the four-year war in Syria, the siege of Yarmouk and the continuing blockade of Gaza has depleted UNRWA’s finances and left Palestinians facing their greatest crisis since the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.



“This year’s financial crisis is the most severe that we have ever faced,” Krähenbühl said. “We only have money to run activities until September. Syria and Gaza plus the historic work we are doing means our needs have increased exponentially in a region that is more and more unstable. We need to close the gap – it is a matter of security.



“Palestinian refugees are facing their most severe situation since 1948. They have had 50 years of occupation, nine years of a blockade in Gaza and now five years of conflict in Syria. When you look at all of that, how much more can they absorb?”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA commissioner general: “Palestinian refugees are facing their most severe situation since 1948.” Photograph: Martial Trezzini/EPA

In an attempt to cope with this pressure on its funding, UNRWA announced this week that it is bringing to an end 85% of its 137 short-term contracts with international consultants. Krähenbühl said that without immediate financial support from the international community, the next cuts will fall on the 700 schools that educate half a million children.



Krähenbühl said that cuts to schools will leave young people at risk of radicalisation. He said: “We may have to take difficult decisions in terms of our school year. It’s important to understand that ... in an environment of very significant instability and radicalisation that is a very worrying development.

“We have already had to raise the average number of children from 38 in the classroom to 43. If we don’t close this funding gap we really are going to be faced with serious risks to the start of the school year. It’s important to realise this is not simply a theoretical discussion.”



Over the past four years around 60,000 Palestinians have left Syria and joined the long-term refugees who have been living in camps across Jordan and Lebanon for decades.

Within Syria itself the agency has faced the major challenge of trying to get support to Palestinian refugees stuck in the Yarmouk refugee camp. Yarmouk has been the scene of some of the worst conditions of the war.



Alongside the 600,000 Palestinians who are still in Syria UNRWA also works with more than 2 million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan, 1.2 million in Gaza, 700,000 in the West Bank and 300,000 in Lebanon.



Funding for all of this comes, as it does for most UN agencies, from voluntary contributions, with the majority of funding coming from a small number of donors.



The UK is UNRWA’s fourth largest donor, with only the US, Saudi Arabia and the EU giving more. Last year the UK gave around £30m to the agency’s general fund, with further donations to emergency appeals, including £8m for responses to the Syria crisis.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Volunteers distribute meals to residents at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, south of Damascus. Photograph: Reuters

A spokesman for the Department for International Development told the Guardian it will continue to support UNRWA but wants to see funding come from a wider pool of donors.

“We have been clear that we will maintain our support for this vital work and recognise the steps UNRWA has already taken to reduce costs,” the spokesman said. “But as demand for its services continues to grow, it is essential that other donors now step up with the additional funding that UNRWA needs.”



Tony Laurance, chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, told the Guardian it was already seeing tensions in the camps as a result of the funding cuts.



“In Lebanon, where UNRWA is the primary service provider to the Palestinian population, refugee camps are struggling to cope with the fallout from the Syria crisis. Our team there have reported increasing tensions and demonstrations against UNRWA cuts to rent subsidies and food cash assistance for Palestinian refugees fleeing violence.”

Krähenbühl wants European donors to look at the long-term impact on their own interests if more money is not given to the emergency projects such as those that support Syrian refugees.

“The Syria emergency appeal, which also includes consequences in Lebanon and Jordan, amounts to $415m and we have only 27% of that,” he said.

“When you think about the debate in Europe about migration, the risk is that larger numbers of Palestinians might leave and join migrants trying to reach the destination of Europe.”