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Experienced conflict mediator: Martin Griffiths
Photo: Denis Balibouse / REUTERS
The head of the UN Emergency Relief Office (Ocha), Martin Griffiths, will step down at the end of June for health reasons, according to the United Nations.
In his term of office since July 2021, Griffiths has always worked to ensure that life-saving aid reaches those in need, said a spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Farhan Haq: "As an experienced diplomat and mediator, he played a key role in leading the humanitarian operations the United Nations and its partners and in negotiations on some of the most difficult crises."
Griffiths is considered one of the most high-profile UN representatives and an experienced conflict mediator. After the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the 72-year-old played a key role in the negotiations between the warring parties over the grain agreement, with which food from Ukraine could be shipped across the previously blocked Black Sea.
The Brit also played a crucial role in the calls for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip (read an interview with Griffiths from January here: "It's absolute hell for the people in Gaza").
Griffiths previously served as UN special envoy to Yemen and advisor to various UN special envoys to Syria.
Last month he called on the UN Security Council to enforce "the ban on starving the civilian population as a method of war."
sak/dpa/AFP