MONITORING (SW) – The OCHA and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said that on Tuesday, 11 January, at 11.30 a.m. Geneva time, two humanitarian appeals will be launched, one for Afghanistan and the other for the region.
More than half of the Afghan population is in need of humanitarian assistance, and the crisis has also driven many people into neighbouring countries in waves over many years.
The virtual event will be live streamed on UN Web TV. Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, will speak at the event, which will also hear from the Asia Nansen Award winner Saleema Rehman, a doctor from Afghanistan.
Ahead of the event, there will be an embargoed hybrid press conference on Monday, 10 January, at 3.30 p.m. Geneva time, in which Mr. Griffiths and Mr. Grandi will participate.
Earlier this month, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi urged the international community to scale up its support to the government and people of Iran, who are receiving Afghans fleeing the deteriorating situation in their country.
The call was expressed in a statement that came after Grandi’s three-day visit to Iran, which said that “(a)ccording to preliminary estimates by the government of Iran, up to 500,000 Afghans have arrived in Iran in 2021”.
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