PESHAWAR: Aid programmes for some of the 2.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are being slashed amid the worst funding shortfall for a generation, as the European and Syrian migrant crisis uses up cash and dominates headlines, United Nations officials said.
Pakistan hosts the world's largest long-term refugee population, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), mostly Afghans who fled more than three decades of war.
The exodus of people from countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan is forcing UN officials to cut programmes like infant feeding, education, and sanitation for refugees in Pakistan.
The UNHCR in Pakistan has received only $33.6 million for 2015 out of its $136.7 million annual budget, officials said.
That means schools like the one run by principal Mohammad Zamir, 55, at the sprawling Kababiyan refugee camp outside the northwestern city of Peshawar, are telling students to go home.