UN warns global aid at risk as Middle East war spreads

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, March 11 (Reuters) – The United Nations aid chief warned on Wednesday that the conflict in the Middle East is straining humanitarian operations worldwide, disrupting supply chains and slowing the delivery of life‑saving assistance to numerous crisis zones.

“We are in a moment of grave peril for the Middle East and, actually I believe, for the wider world,” Tom Fletcher, the U.N. aid chief, told Reuters.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has expanded to Lebanon and dragged in Gulf countries, has convulsed global markets and disrupted supply chains, with airspace closures and the halt of shipping ​through the critical Strait of Hormuz. 

Fletcher said aid supplies to Gaza and sub‑Saharan Africa are being affected by the conflict, as humanitarian relief that needs to travel through the Strait of Hormuz or through airspace in the Gulf has been largely blocked or constrained.

Conflict-ridden Somalia, which is facing a major drought, and Sudan are among a number of countries facing dire humanitarian crises.

“These (constraints) will damage our humanitarian supply chains, reduce the humanitarian supplies we can get to people who need them, but they’ll also drive up energy costs and food costs across the region,” Fletcher said. 

“This really is a perfect storm of factors right now, and I’m seriously worried,” he stated.

There is particular concern for aid supplies to sub‑Saharan Africa, Flether said, which are being impacted by restricted movement through the Strait of Hormuz, with alternative routes slapped with rising freight costs. 

Higher oil prices are making the U.N.’s aid deliveries by air more expensive, at a time when UN agencies and NGOs budgets are already facing major donor cuts, Fletcher explained.

“We’ve just about put some money together to keep more of our UN humanitarian flights in the air, but they’ve suddenly, almost overnight, become much more expensive,” Fletcher said. 

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by William Maclean)