The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has denounced Switzerland and the Netherlands for suspending their financial support for UNRWA following a leaked UN report on long-time corruption within the refugee agency.
The Geneva-based rights group warned on Wednesday of serious repercussions to result from the shrinking international support for UNRWA whose services has become threatened to come to a halt.
Euro-Med added that such step by Switzerland and the Netherlands would only affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who have been displaced by the Israeli occupation of their land for more than seven decades.
“The danger is not only confined to the relief services for the Palestinian refugees being halted but also to their right of return being undermined because the existence of the agency has been linked since its inception to providing services for the Palestinian refugees until a just solution to their cause has been found in accordance with the UN General Assembly’s resolution no. 194 which stipulates their right to return to the lands they were expelled from during the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948 and the emergence of Israel” a statement released on the website of Euro-Med said.
Its statement underlined that “corruption should not be dealt with by halting funding but rather by strengthening the mechanisms of transparency monitoring and direct supervision if necessary especially since those who oversee and run the operations of UNRWA are mostly from European Union countries.”
