The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned today that the war in the Middle East is a “major humanitarian crisis” requiring an immediate response from all actors “across the region.”
“The escalation of the crisis in the Middle East constitutes a major humanitarian crisis that requires an immediate response across the region and in Southeast Asia,” said the director of UNHCR’s Emergency and Programme Support Division, Japanese national Ayaki Ito, in Geneva, adding that some of the organisation’s staff are currently “at risk.”
The United States and Israel launched a military strike against Iran on February 28, killing ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader since 1989. The Iranian Leadership Council is currently running the country.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and launched retaliatory strikes against targets in Israel, US bases and other infrastructure in countries across the region, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman and Iraq. Incidents involving Iranian projectiles were also recorded in Cyprus and Turkey.
Since the start of the conflict, more than one thousand deaths have been recorded, the majority Iranian.
