Swedish government under fire after cutting aid to UN agency for Palestinian refugees

By Alexandra Enberg

IZMIR (AA) - Sweden’s opposition Social Democrats blasted the government's decision to cut off aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees or UNWRA due to allegations of some staffers’ involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, calling it “catastrophic,” in the words of Morgan Johansson, the party’s foreign policy spokesperson.

"You have to remember the extreme situation Gaza is in. Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of an acute famine. Breaking up UNRWA this way will cost many people their lives," he told SVT's Aktuellt broadcasting.

The decision “will cost many people their lives,” Johansson told public broadcaster SVT.

Jan Eliasson, a former UN deputy secretary-general, was also critical of the move, telling Dagens Arena online: "I react strongly against the fact that in the emergency situation in which the people of Gaza find themselves, they choose to take such a step … The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. And then you must not send the signal that civilians must pay this price further.”

Johan von Schreeb, professor of global disaster medicine at the Stockholm-based Karolinska Institutet, told the medical journal Läkartidningen: "There is no one else but UNRWA who has the right distribution channels, no one else who can deliver food, water and diesel to the hospital's generators. It is easy to calculate what the consequences will be if you suddenly suspend salaries for UNRWA's 13,000 employees and trucks with supplies are no longer driven into the country.”

After allegations of links to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, several countries suspended support for the UN agency, including Sweden on Tuesday.

Sweden is among the largest donors to UNRWA, along with several other EU countries and the US.