The refugee population from Palestine faces profound instability. Their dignity and rights are questioned as their needs continue to grow. The responsibility for this population becoming the one to have remained in exile for the longest time period can be assigned directly to the lack of will and the complete inability of the international community to achieve a negotiated, peaceful solution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

The failure to end the conflicts causes the refugees’ situation to endure and denies them the option of choosing a future of their own in a dignified manner. UNRWA, as the Agency devoted to attending to the refugee population from Palestine, and its Commissioner General, Pierre Krähenbühl, have alerted that these 5.4 million men, women and children refugees have rights under international law and cannot just be ignored. The refugee population from Palestine is subjected to extreme violence, pain, suffering and injustice caused by war, as a result of forced displacement, plundering, the loss of homes and means of subsistence, as well as the occupation.

In his speech at Casa Árabe, Krähenbühl will discuss UNRWA’s commitment to maintaining the integrity of its mandate in fields such as education, health care, social services and the emergency response for the refugee population from Palestine, to favor the dignity of these men, women and children.

Pierre Krähenbühl
Named by the Secretary General in November of 2013, Pierre Krähenbühl became the Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on March 30, 2014. As the Commissioner General, he holds the position of Under-Secretary General. A Swiss national born in 1966, Mr. Krähenbühl has 30 years of experience in humanitarian work, human rights and development. Before joining the UNRWA, he was the Director of Operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross from July 2002 to January 2014, holding responsibility over the management and supervision of 12,000 workers in 80 countries. While in this position, he directly oversaw the response by the organization to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Colombia and Libya, as well as others. He headed top-level negotiations with different governments, armed forces and other groups to ensure access to the populations affected by those conflicts.  Mr. Krähenbühl’s experience has also taken him to different destinations and positions in places undergoing profound social changes and armed conflicts, such as El Salvador, Peru and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He has a Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Geneva.