By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 9 October 2014:
The United Nations has said it will need an extra $35 million . . .[restrict]in funding to give assistance to an estimated 331,000 people who have been internally displaced by fighting across the country.
The UN’s humanitarian wing, the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has said that as many as 287,000 internal refugees have been forced to flee their homes because of fighting in Tripoli and Benghazi alone and are in dire need of assistance.
Another 100,000 are believed to have travelled to neighbouring countries as a result of the ongoing crisis.
OCHA said the money was needed for health and food assistance, provision of items like hygiene kits, and other programmes to target the internally displaced and their affected host communities.
“Whilst the conflict has obliged the vast majority of the international community present in Libya, including the United Nations, to temporarily withdraw from the country, access is being sought through national and international partners who have presence in the country and through UN agency national staff,” the organisation said.
It added that humanitarian needs assessments were ongoing “in order to take into account the fluid security situation in the country and identify and target the most vulnerable affected populations”.
OCHA said civilian casualties, injuries and large-scale displacement continue to increase in Libya as a result of recent clashes in Tripoli and several other areas of the country.
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