The United Nations Relief and Works Administration will require an additional $10,000,000 this year–in addition to its budget of $37,000,000 for the year — to cover emergency relief and long-term rehabilitation expenditures for the new Arab refugees cast adrift by the six-day Arab-Israeli war. This was a major point in a 13-page report on humanitarian problems in the Middle East issued yesterday by Secretary-General U Thant.
In the absence of a political settlement in the area, Mr. U Thant’s report stated, more than 300,000 displaced Arabs face a future of “uncertainties and imponderables.” But the Secretary-General also noted that by the beginning of August, the immediate minimal needs of the displaced persons for food. shelter and health services had been met — although “arrangements were still precarious and needed strengthening and regularizing.”
Mr. Thant’s report was based on information supplied by Commissioner General of UNRWA Laurence Michelmore and by Nils-Goran Gussing, the special representative on humanitarian problems. The Secretary-General avoided judging the “political issues” between Israel and the Arab states, but he pointed out that the displacement of 322,000 Arabs who had fled into Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Republic during Arab-Israeli hostilities had greatly intensified the Palestine refugee problem.
The number of refugees who registered with UNRWA as having moved during or after the hostilities was about 113,000, the report stated, with the largest number — about 93,000 — fleeing from the west bank of the Jordan to the east bank. UNRWA, which has expended more than $580,000,000 since it was created in 1950 after Israel’s War for Independence in 1948, had faced a deficit in voluntary contributions even before the recent war. Mr. U Thant noted that most of the help consisting of food, medical supplies, tents and other materials, sent voluntarily by governments and organizations, was of limited duration. He urged that longer-term assistance be supplied from the same sources in view of the newly-created situation following the war.
Discussing the activities of Mr. Gussing, the report referred to his consultations with authorities in Middle East countries on the question of the status and well-being of minority groups. Mr. Gussing the report notes, visited eight of the ten Israeli prisoners of war captured by Egypt during the hostilities, but it contains no comment on their condition. The U.N. representative also visited the Egyptian prisoners of war held in Israel at Athlit.
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