Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed<\/p>\n
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed on Sunday to hold to account \u201cany UN employee involved in acts of terror\u201d after allegations that some refugee agency staffers were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.<\/p>\n
But Guterres implored governments to continue supporting the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) after multiple countries paused funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,\u201d the UN chief said in a statement. \u201cThe Secretariat is ready to cooperate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the Secretariat\u2019s normal procedures for such cooperation.\u201d
\nAt the same time, he said, \u201cThe tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first direct comments on the issue, the UN chief gave details about the UNRWA staffers implicated in the \u201cabhorrent alleged acts.\u201d Of the 12 implicated, he said, nine had been terminated, one was confirmed dead and the identities of the other two were being clarified.<\/p>\n
Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland on Saturday joined the United States, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency, a critical source of support for people in Gaza, after the allegations by Israel.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, France said it was also suspending funding to UNRWA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I understand their concerns \u2013 I was myself horrified by these accusations – I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA\u2019s operations,\u201d Guterres said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed on Sunday to hold to account \u201cany UN employee involved in acts of terror\u201d after allegations that some refugee agency staffers were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. But Guterres implored governments to continue supporting the UN refugee agency for Palestinians …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12869,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12867\/revisions\/12869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}