UN agency sounds alarm over ‘humanitarian emergency’ in Middle East

GENEVA – The UN refugee agency said on Friday that nearly 100,000 people ​have been displaced within Lebanon and tens of ‌thousands of Syrian refugees there have fled back over the border, calling the situation in the region a "major humanitarian ​emergency."

Israel has issued large-scale evacuation orders for southern Lebanon ​and parts of Beirut amid hostilities with ⁠the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah since a US-Israeli ​air campaign against Iran began on February 28.

"UNHCR has ​declared the escalating crisis in the Middle East as a major humanitarian emergency requiring an immediate response across the region ​and into Southeast Asia," Ayaki Ito, the UN ​refugee agency's Director of Emergency and Programme Support, told a Geneva ‌press ⁠briefing.

Ito added that the figures given for the scale of displacement so far are likely an underestimate.

He said that some 100,000 people have been displaced within Iran in ​the first days ​of the ⁠conflict and that UNHCR staff there are receiving hundreds of calls daily from ​Iranians seeking assistance.

The World Health Organization is ​stepping ⁠up disease surveillance in Lebanon due to the mass displacement, said regional director Hanan Balkhy.

"It worries us very ⁠much, the ​numbers of the displaced populations ​and the lack of adequate water and sanitation," she said.