UN prods donors for emergency Palestinian camp aid

VIENNA, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed to donors, especially Arab nations, on Wednesday to come up with almost $40 million in emergency aid for 30,000 Palestinian refugees uprooted by fighting at a camp in Lebanon last year.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it had called last month for $43 million in aid for Nahr el Bared camp refugees who lost homes in the bloodshed but so far only the United States had made a firm pledge of $4.3 million.

"(We call on) Arab donors to help UNRWA respond adequately to the humanitarian needs of these refugees who have endured more than their fair share of misery and displacement," agency director Karen AbuZayd said in a statement issued in Vienna.

A few European states had signalled readiness to make donations but not the Palestinians' fellow Arabs in neighbouring countries, she said.

"Unless we receive additional contributions by the end of the year, services to refugees will suffer. We must not allow that to happen," AbuZayd said.

In Vienna, she signed an agreement between UNRWA and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) worth $5 million for the building of eight schools to replace those destroyed by the fighting in Nahr el Bared.

Austria's foreign ministry hosted a conference last June in which international donors offered $120 million to help rebuild Nahr el Bared, which was largely destroyed in fighting between Islamist militants and the Lebanese army.

The camp was home to about 40,000 people up to then.

UNRWA has put the cost of rebuilding at $282 million.

Lebanon is home to some 400,000 registered Palestinian refugees whose families fled their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948. More than half of them live in 12 camps sprinkled across the country.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)