16/10/2003

Areas contaminated by Chernobyl 'remain difficult', says UN

Seventeen years after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station the situation in the area remains "difficult" - as does the coordination of international relief efforts, according to a UN report issued today.

In a report on "optimising the international effort" to mitigate the consequences of the disaster, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that despite that fact that 17 years have passed since the accident, the situation in and around Chernobyl and the contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine "remains difficult".

The report said: "More needs to be done to secure donor support in a systematic way. United Nations country teams are talking to donors in their respective countries, but this work needs to be invigorated and coordinated."

The report suggested further study of three possibilities: a large donor conference; the organizing of donor field trips to the most-affected areas; and a coordinated approach in the donor capitals, in the UN Headquarters in New York and in the capitals of the three affected states.

"The United Nations programmes aimed at addressing the human consequences of the Chernobyl disaster have been chronically underfunded for many years. Because of the constraints felt by some donors, Chernobyl falls into a budgetary gap," it concluded.

(gmcg)

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