AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Is there any war that does not directly impact civilians? Today, the U.N. Refugee Agency estimated that up to 3.2 million Iranians are temporarily displaced inside Iran. And authorities in Lebanon say that 800,000 people have fled in response to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets. With no end in sight to the bombing, today, we reached out to Sam Vigersky, a former U.S. official and now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome.
SAM VIGERSKY: Good to be with you.
CHANG: So can you just give us more detail first about what is the situation right now in Lebanon? Like, where are people going?
VIGERSKY: Well, they're going to a network of shelters, but most people are not finding places to stay, so some of them are ending up on the streets. The toll and wave of civilians that are fleeing southern Lebanon and the suburbs in Beirut for safety are growing by the day, and it's become very difficult to try to find relief for them.
CHANG: And in Iran, we have this news today from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. More than 3 million people in Iran are fleeing Tehran and other major cities into the north for safety. What are you hearing from where you are that corroborates that?
VIGERSKY: It's a escalating situation, as everyone is seeing, and the civilian population is caught in the crosshairs. So in any conflict setting, when that happens, they're going to flee for safety. The U.N. Refugee Agency itself is well positioned to respond to this. A number of years of work in country has set up an infrastructure, mostly for Afghan refugees who had fled that conflict years ago...
CHANG: Right.
VIGERSKY: ...To shelter those who are fleeing Tehran and other parts of the country.
CHANG: Right. And to make it very clear, what you just pointed out is that many of the people now affected were already refugees. They have already fled places like Afghanistan for safety in Iran, and now they are on the move once more.
VIGERSKY: That's right. The Afghan refugees who are in Iran are under increased pressure. Some of them have been forced to return since last summer. Those who remain are potentially on the run again. In Lebanon, we've seen a wave of Syrians return back to Syria over the last few weeks as well.
CHANG: What do we know so far about the number of civilian casualties throughout the region caused by the Iran war?
VIGERSKY: Those numbers are coming in. The - you know, the most high-profile was this bombing of a school in Iran, where upwards...
CHANG: Yes.
VIGERSKY: ...Of 160 children were killed. But the information is only starting to trickle out, and we're going to expect them to - those figures to grow higher in the coming days.
CHANG: OK. You write about how the pause in global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is having a huge impact on the amount of relief that's able to go through. Can you say more about that?
VIGERSKY: For many years, the U.N. and the NGO community set up a logistics operation in Dubai. It was known as - it is known as the International Humanitarian City. It gives access to many sites around the world in need and is a very efficient way to ship and store freight. Today, it's ground to a halt. None of that aid can get out of that port. Flying from runways is extremely dangerous. So supplies, not only for the region that you think of, like tarps for people who are homeless or food for people who are hungry, are being stalled. The supplies themselves become more expensive because they're in short supply. And even the vendors who have things like tarps and mosquito nets that you'd think of for humanitarian aid in local markets have been reported to not want to sell them, expecting those prices to go up in the coming weeks.
CHANG: Yeah. OK. So then make it very clear. How effectively have international aid groups been able to respond so far since this war broke out?
VIGERSKY: Well, unfortunately, those aid groups are really starting from a bad place. Last year, the Trump administration cut 70% of humanitarian aid. The United States was the largest donor. The result of that is that aid agencies like the U.N. Refugee Agency or the World Food Programme had to cut 25% of their staff. Those same actors are on the ground. They're ready to deliver aid, even if they have a smaller staff footprint. But what they also need is new money to start doing these new programs.
CHANG: Well, as all of that ripples out, what do you think the global impact of this war in Iran will be on humanitarian aid all around the world?
VIGERSKY: It has the potential to be both devastating and dangerous very quickly. The food prices are likely to go up because gas prices and oil prices are going up. This is a phenomenon that we saw very acutely during the Ukraine crisis four years ago. The fertilizer that people are using to grow food is in short supply because much of it is actually coming from the Gulf. And whether you're planting food today to grow for two months from now, you'll end up charging more for it. Or if you're in the market today trying to sell something, you're going to charge more for that as well because inflation is going up across the world.
CHANG: You mentioned the severe funding cuts in the U.S. to international aid programs. Is there any sense that there could be any infusion of cash to help ameliorate the situation that you're illustrating right now?
VIGERSKY: The U.S. Congress just passed a $5 1/2 billion package of humanitarian aid for the State Department. They have the ability to program this. They can give it to the U.N., the U.N. Refugee Agency. There are dozens of NGOs that are in the region right now ready to do this work. They need that pipeline of money to get the programs off the ground. So it's incumbent on the people at the State Department to take action immediately and try to contain a growing crisis before it's too late.
CHANG: Sam Vigersky, formerly a humanitarian officer for the U.S., now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you very much.
VIGERSKY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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