UN Humanitarian Chief Warns of Growing Crisis Amid Middle East Conflicts

(MENAFN) The UN’s humanitarian chief has sounded the alarm over the rapidly worsening crises across the Middle East, highlighting an urgent need for aid as conflicts intensify and strain already overstretched relief systems, according to reports.

Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters in Geneva that violence in the region is increasingly spilling across borders and compounding humanitarian emergencies.

“We’re living through a moment right now of grave peril across the Middle East,” he said. “We’re seeing these crises escalate rapidly and increasingly collide in dangerous ways.”

Fletcher described the consequences of these escalating conflicts as including widespread displacement, economic shocks, and a surge in humanitarian needs, while aid workers themselves are coming under growing threat.

“The developments of the last two weeks are further confirmation that we’re living in a time of brutality, impunity, and indifference, the rules-based scaffolding meant to restrain the worst excesses of war is cracking,” he said. “Human ingenuity is being applied to find ever more sinister ways to kill at scale while civilians are subjected to ever more abject violence.”

He also stressed that humanitarian personnel are being increasingly targeted. “Just today, three more of my humanitarian colleagues in Sudan, in the DRC (The Democratic Republic of the Congo) and in Lebanon have, I’m afraid, been killed,” he noted.

Fletcher called on the UN Security Council to prioritize the protection of civilians and aid workers, and to support humanitarian agencies in reaching vulnerable populations. “Civilians, all civilians, wherever they are in the region, must be protected,” he said. He also urged renewed diplomatic efforts to prevent further escalation of conflicts.

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