Press Release - June 16, 2011
Press Release
Brussels/London – June 16, 2011
The CEPR endorses UNRWA’s Gaza Blockade Anniversary Report
The Council for European-Palestinian Relations (CEPR) expresses strong support for the release of UNRWA’s Gaza Blockade Anniversary Report:
“As the Gaza blockade moves into its fifth year, a new report by the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, says broad unemployment in the second half of 2010 reached 45.2 per cent, one of the highest in the world. The report released today, finds that real wages continued to decline under the weight of persistently high unemployment, falling 34.5 per cent since the first half of 2006.”
Dr. Arafat Shoukri, Director of the CEPR, claims “these are alarming statistics that demonstrate the dire effects of the isolation of Gaza by the international community.”
“These are disturbing trends,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, “and the refugees, which make up two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million population were the worst hit […] It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution.”
For clarifications on UNRWA’s role in addressing the plight of the Palestinian refugees and alleviating poverty in the Palestinian territories, read: “Don’t blame UNRWA” (YNet, 14/06/11).
-ENDS-
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