As Virus Reaches War Zones, UN Chief Calls for Global Cease-Fire

(Bloomberg) --

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the spread of the coronavirus demands a global cease-fire in war zones so nations can focus on the pandemic as their true enemy.

With infections now reported in Syria and Gaza, Guterres said that weak health-care systems mean civilian populations face the “highest risk of suffering devastating losses.” Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are “doubly vulnerable,” he said, calling for “an immediate global cease-fire in all corners of the world.”

“It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives,” he told reporters on Monday.

Millions of civilians in crowded refugee camps from Syria to Yemen to Myanmar lack basic requirements deployed in richer countries to fight the spread of the epidemic, from clean water and soap to enough space to keep a safe distance from one another. The UN is seeking $2 billion from wealthier countries as part of a global humanitarian plan to help poor countries combat the virus, he added.

While wealthy countries are trying to develop stimulus plans to buttress their healthcare systems and economies as global equity markets sink, Guterres said coordination is needed so that “not only the developed countries can respond effectively to the disease but that there is massive support to the developing world not to let the disease spread like wildfire in the developing world.”

He said an aid package will need to keep households and businesses in poorer countries afloat “and this will require a double‑digit GDP support in the developed world” and the “creation of new facilities” through the IMF to enable swaps among central banks.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.