<figure id="attachment_3176656" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3176656" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3176656" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/766834e2-filippo-grandi-06102025.webp" alt="" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3176656" class="wp-caption-text">UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi delivers his statement during the UNHCR&#8217;s 76th annual Executive Committee in Geneva. (EPA Images pic)</figcaption></figure>
GENEVA: The UN&#8217;s cash-strapped refugee agency has shed nearly 5,000 jobs this year following swingeing cuts in international aid, its chief said Monday.
The UNHCR is facing a towering crisis: amid surging global displacement, humanitarian funding has been fast evaporating since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January.
&#8220;Almost 5,000 UNHCR colleagues have already lost their jobs this year,&#8221; Filippo Grandi said.
&#8220;This is more than a quarter of our entire workforce,&#8221; he said, warning that &#8220;that number is expected to grow.&#8221;
An agency spokesman told AFP that both full-time staff and people on temporary or consultancy contracts had lost their jobs.
Traditionally the world&#8217;s top donor, the US has heavily slashed foreign aid, causing havoc across the globe.
Washington previously accounted for over 40% of the UNHCR&#8217;s budget and that, along with belt-tightening by other major donor countries, has left the agency in a dire situation, Grandi acknowledged.
&#8220;The numbers are bleak,&#8221; he said.
UNHCR had an approved budget for 2025 of US$10.6 billion, Grandi said, stressing though that the agency in recent years had received only &#8220;approximately half of our budget requirements&#8221; – or around US$5 billion.
&#8220;As things stand, we project we will end 2025 with US$3.9. billion in funds available – a decrease of US$1.3 billion compared to 2024, or roughly 25% less.&#8221;
&#8220;No country, no sector, no partner has been spared,&#8221; Grandi said. &#8220;Critical programmes and lifesaving activities have to be stopped, gender-based violence prevention work, psychosocial support to survivors of torture, and stopped.
&#8220;Schools were closed, food assistance decreased, cash grants cut, resettlement ground to a halt. This is what happens when you slash funding by over US$1 billion in a matter of weeks.&#8221;

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