UN: 2021 is beginning to take shape as a humanitarian disaster

SANAA, Dec. 5 (YPA) – Senior UN officials told the 193-nation General Assembly on Friday that next year is beginning to take shape as a humanitarian disaster.

“Rich countries should not crush poor countries in a “vaccine fight” to cope with the new Coronavirus pandemic,” he said.

David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanum Gebresus, spoke at a special meeting to discuss Covid-19, which appeared in China late last year and has hit some 65 million people around the world.

“2021 will literally be a disaster based on what we are seeing at this point,” he said, noting that famine is “knocking on the doors” of more than 10 countries.

He continued: the 2021 is likely to see “the worst humanitarian crisis since the founding of the United Nations” 75 years ago and “we will not be able to finance everything… So we’re going to have to prioritize and, as I say, this is just the tip of an iceberg.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his senior officials called for vaccines to be provided to prevent Covid-19 for all and for helping rich developing countries overcome and recover from the pandemic.

The United Nations said a few days ago that the pandemic and the actions taken by countries to contain it and the economic impact of this prompted a 40 percent increase in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance and appealed for $35 billion to fund aid.

E.M