MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2020) The United Nations' Refugee Agency, UNHCR, on Friday issued an appeal for an additional $455 million in aid to help refugees and stateless people in camps better combat COVID-19 outbreaks.
In a statement published Friday, UNHCR said that the funds would go to address six priority areas of physical and mental wellbeing made vulnerable by the pandemic.
The sum is separate from the $8.616 billion global appeal for refugee assistance for 2021 issued to donors earlier, the agency said.
Some of the money would go to support livelihoods of refugees by issuing cash grants and aid to entrepreneurial efforts, while more will be issued to ensure the safe reopening of schools and enhance distance learning capabilities, particularly among adolescent girls.
Safeguarding against shortages of personal protective equipment and ensuring health care facilities have access to clean water will also be addressed with the prospective funds.
UNHCR oversees the largest refugee camps in the world, with three Somali camps in Kenya numbering over 100,000 displaced people each, the Rohingya camp in Bangladesh with its nearly one million refugees, among others. Living in cramped conditions and in squalor makes refugee camps highly vulnerable to COVID-19 outbreaks and they are usually dealt the harshest effects of the pandemic's socio-economic impacts.
