Oct 3 2012
"A combination of major new conflicts and unresolved ones around the world are increasingly straining humanitarian resources at unprecedented levels, the head of the United Nations refugee agency warned" on Monday, the U.N. News Centre reports. Speaking at the UNHCR's annual Executive Committee meeting in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres "said [.pdf] UNHCR's capacity to help the world's forcibly displaced was being 'radically tested' by the acceleration of the crises, with more than 700,000 people having fled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, Sudan, and Syria this year alone," according to the news service. He said, "Our operations in Africa, in particular, are dramatically underfunded. ... At this moment, we have no room for any unforeseen needs. No reserves available. In today's unpredictable operating environment, this is a cause for deep concern," the news service notes (10/1).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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