‘Donations, aid offered by Kuwait reached Syrian refugees directly’
No administrative deduction done by UNHCR: Dr Hanan
KUWAIT CITY, June 21: Dr Hanan Hamdan, Head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuwait, affirms that the donations and aid offered to Syrians by Kuwait from 2013 to 2017 have reached the Syrian refugees directly without any administrative deduction by UNHCR, reports AlRai daily.
Talking to the daily, Dr Hamdan said June 20 is the World Refugee Day and the UNHCR is using this opportunity to shed light on the sufferings of refugees and support them as well as stress the fact that most of the hosting countries are developing countries and share their limited resources with the refugees.
She revealed that the rate of refugees around the world has reached an unprecedented level this year, which negatively affected the way such a humanitarian crises can be dealt with.
Dr Hamdan explained that UNHCR deals with about 71.4 million individuals around the world including 39.1 million internal immigrants. About 57 percent of all the refugees in the world belong to three countries – Syria, Afghanistan and South Sudan.
Hosted
Turkey has hosted the highest number of refugees in 2017 followed by Pakistan and Uganda. The total number of refugees in the Middle East and North Africa is 17 million including 11 million internal refugees.
About 50 percent of the refugees are between 12 to 59 years of age. Almost 50 percent of the refugees are women.
About 84 percent of all the refugees are hosted by developing countries, as per international indexes.
UNHCR and other organizations affiliated to the United Nations launched urgent calls to collect $5.6 billion for supporting the Syrian refugees in the region in 2018 but only 20 percent of the requested amount has been collected so far. This has tampered the efforts being exerted to rescue and support refugees. The lack of support has resulted in nonprovision of necessary services such as education, housing and medical services.
Dr Hamdan indicated that UNHCR is seeking to sign an international treaty with the cooperation of the international community for implementing sustainable solutions to deal with the issue of refugees.
She said UNHCR has so far offered financial support to 5,500 Syrian families using Zakat, especially the families supported by women, adding that 1,152 Syrian families in Jordan and Lebanon have been offered necessary support.
Dr Hamdan stressed that Kuwait in the past few years emerged as a leading country in the field of humanitarian work led by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
Recognition
She explained, “In recognition of the unlimited efforts to support humanitarian issues, His Highness the Amir’s recommendations have been instrumental in mobilizing international efforts to support humanitarian issues and maintain peace and security in the region.
Kuwait provided a generous donation of more than $340 million between 2013 and 2017 through UNHCR in response to the Syrian crisis, enabling UNHCR to assist more than seven million refugees in
the region.”
Kuwait also hosted three international donor conferences and participated in the organization of two other conferences. It mobilized international support through the organization of nine high-level meetings of major donor countries as a way of following up developments.
Dr Hamdan stressed that the security issue is one of the toughest challenges facing the staff members of all international organizations in Syria, adding that around 80 percent of the employees of UNHCR are working in various fields from different countries.
Regarding Kuwait’s humanitarian response to the Iraq crisis, it offered a generous donation of $ 3 million through UNHCR to help the refugees in 2014. It made another generous contribution of $ 8 million in 2017 for dealing with the Mosul crisis.
Kuwait hosted the International
Conference for the Reconstruction of Iraq on Feb 12-14, 2018. Highlevel government representatives, private sector companies, civil society and non-governmental organizations had participated in the conference. Kuwait provided loans and investments worth $ 2 billion as well as $ 122.5 million of humanitarian donations from Kuwaiti charities and non-governmental organizations. The conference helped mobilize international support for reconstruction of Iraq and provide $ 30 billion of support from stakeholders.
Conference
In addition, Kuwait organized an international donor conference for dealing with the Rohingya crisis with the cooperation of the European Union, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs. It was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2017. During that conference, Kuwait announced its commitment to provide $ 15 million in response to the Rohingya crisis.
In addition, Kuwait hosted the UN-sponsored Yemeni peace talks to solve the crisis in 2016. These discussions lasted for more than three months but no solution was reached.
However, Kuwait continued to offer humanitarian support through the allocation of a generous donation of $ 100 million during the donor conference held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2017. Also, a generous donation of $ 16 million was offered as a grant from members of the Kuwaiti society.
Kuwait recently allocated $250 million in response to the growing humanitarian needs in Yemen during the Yemen Donors Conference in Geneva which was organized by the United Nations, Sweden and Switzerland in April 2018.