Brussels, 19/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission decided to grant EUR 13.8 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Taken from the ECHO budget (Community humanitarian aid office) this amount will allow the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for refugees from Palestine in the Middle East (UNWRA) in Gaza to provide food products and cash to more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees who are among the most impoverished. The amounts paid in cash (EUR 8.7 million out of the total) will be used to improve the revenues of people living in conditions of extreme poverty, in particular pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, those suffering from tuberculosis and families with revenues that have been affected by disease, handicaps or the death of a parent.
To achieve this objective - provide these refugees with a diet of 1,600 calories per day for one year, UNWRA intends to distribute, over the year, 1,840 tonnes of vegetable oil, 3,750 tonnes of sugar, 1,245 tonnes of powdered dried milk, 40 tonnes of vegetables and 15 tonnes of olive oil.
The ECHO contribution towards this programme has been the object of a financing convention that has just been signed by the Commission and UNWRA.