2015 will be ‘tough year’ for humanitarian operations, senior UN official warns

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The outlook for global humanitarian operations is “very, very bleak,” a top United Nations humanitarian official warned today saying that “it’s been a rapid deterioration through 2014 and sadly, as we move forward we’re expecting to face a tough year in 2015,” APA reports quoting UN News Center.

 

“When we look back at where we were this time last year we had about 52 million people in humanitarian need and we are now ending the year with over 76 million people,” UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Director of Operations John Ging told UN Radio.

 

The cost of responding to that has grown by a similar rate from about $12.9 billion in 2013 up to $19.2 billion dollars right now, Mr. Ging added.

 

“The poor people who are affected by the crisis…are losing their lives in the hundreds of thousands, in the millions, in fact. And with tens of millions really subsisting in terrible misery and inhumane conditions, they certainly can’t afford for this situation to continue,” he said.

He said there is a basis there for progress if we can find a way to find political solutions.

 

Mr. Ging stressed that 2014 was a very difficult as well as dangerous year for aid workers. “Sadly we have lost 85 colleagues so far this year in over 230 attacks on humanitarian workers.”

 

Apa.az