Ayaki Ito, UNHCR emergency manager and cross-regional refugee coordinator.
GENEVA:
The United Nations refugee agency on Friday declared the crisis in the Middle East a major humanitarian emergency and insisted that all fleeing civilians must have safe passage.
The UNHCR said the crisis in the Middle East – which began on Saturday when Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran and has since spread – had already forced large numbers of people to flee their homes.
“UNHCR has declared the escalating crisis in the Middle East a major humanitarian emergency requiring an immediate response across the region,” Ayaki Ito, the agency’s emergency response chief and its cross-regional refugee coordinator, told a press briefing in Geneva.
“The recent escalation of hostilities and attacks in the Middle East has triggered significant population movements – while clashes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have also forced many thousands of families to flee,” he said.
The affected regions already host nearly 25 million people as refugees, internally displaced persons or refugees who have recently returned from abroad, Ito said.
He said UNHCR was trying to get life-saving assistance to affected countries across the region.
Ito said it was imperative that all civilians who need to move or cross borders “find safety and safe passage”.
Fresh attacks rocked Iran and Lebanon on Friday as Israel vowed to escalate into a new phase in the Middle East war that has spiraled rapidly across the region and beyond.
