UNITED NATIONS NEEDS $208 MILLION FOR HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE FOR FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Press Release
REF/1127
UNITED NATIONS NEEDS $208 MILLION FOR HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE FOR FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
19951120 NEW YORK, 20 November (Department of Humanitarian Affairs) -- The United Nations today announced requirements of $208 million to fund humanitarian assistance in the former Yugoslavia from January to April 1996. The appeal is based on a planning figure of 3.3 million beneficiaries in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).The total number of new asylum seekers and displaced persons in former Yugoslavia in 1995 alone has risen to half a million. Military offensives by the parties increased before the signing of the cease-fire agreement on 12 October. From early September until the end of October, 200,000 people in the region were obliged to leave their homes to seek relative security elsewhere. That large displacement followed the flight of more than 280,000 people from their homes between May and August.
The inter-agency appeal was launched today by Peter Hansen, Under- Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), on behalf of nine United Nations bodies (UNHCR, World Food Programme, United Nations Children's Fund, World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Volunteers and the Department of Humanitarian Affairs) as well as the International Organization for Migration.
The appeal document notes that "more hope has been engendered in the recent peace initiatives than in any other". The United Nations agencies expressed "optimism and hope that a turning point has been reached" in the conflict, but added that the uncertainty of future developments and the long winter ahead made the current appeal necessary. The future form of humanitarian assistance, the document adds, will depend on the outcome of the peace initiatives, the content of an eventual peace agreement, the future geographical and political boundaries, overall coordination mechanisms and the movement of internally displaced persons and refugees. The new appeal includes a chapter on post-conflict planning which reflects the initial thinking of the agencies on this subject to be "followed by intensive preparation at all levels in the next few months".
The United Nations works closely in the former Yugoslavia with the European Community Humanitarian Office, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. According to the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, more than 500 international and indigenous non-governmental organizations work in the region, many of them in partnership with the UNHCR and other agencies.
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