In two years the Azerbaijani government will not need international humanitarian assistance rendered to refugees and infernally displaced people, James Morris, the UN World Food Program (UNWFP), told a news conference in Baku on 28 July.
Morris said that the leadership of WFP is satisfied with the cooperation with the Azerbaijani government. We appreciate the fact that the government has undertaken a commitment to remove the refugee camps by the end of next year, he stressed.
Since 1994 humanization assistance has been rendered to over 500,000 refugees and internally displaced people from Azerbaijan and it was decided to prolong the program for 2 years more. In this period we will render food assistance to 33,000 people of this category. It is a long-term activities of the organization, he noted.
So far, the Azerbaijani government has received around $120m in humanitarian assistance. However, the number of natural disasters rose and the military conflict and therefore the WFP should attach more attention to the humanitarian assistance namely in hot-points of the Earth.
The UNWFP Executive Director expressed his hope that the cooperation with the Azerbaijani government will bear fruits and social problems of refugees and internally replaced people will be partially resolved.
Addressing the news conference the Vice Premier, also the chairman of the State Committee on Refugees and internally Displaced People, Ali Hasanov, thanked the organization for the assistance in the resolution of the problem, the UNWFP is the organization which has been involved in rendering assistance to this category. He also hailed the decision by the organization the extension of the term of program, noting that for the time being the government was in no condition to resolve the problem of refugees and internally displaced people by itself.
Until full resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict the refugees and internally displaced people will not return to their native lands, he underlined.
