Jeff Bartos says UN reform is no longer an 'oxymoron' after $570M in cuts

UNITED NATIONS — When Jeff Bartos appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2025 for his confirmation hearing, he was warned that the job he was seeking might not exist. 

The Pennsylvania businessman, former political candidate and endurance athlete had been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador for United Nations Management and Reform — a title that has long sounded aspirational in a building famous for bureaucracy.

During his confirmation hearing, Bartos recalled being greeted with a dose of skepticism.

"UN reform? That's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one," lawmakers told him.

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Less than a year later, Bartos believes the impossible is beginning to happen.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, the Trump administration official laid out an ambitious campaign to reshape an institution critics say has become bloated, inefficient and increasingly disconnected from its founding mission.

The effort comes at a pivotal moment for the United Nations. The stakes extend well beyond budgets. As the U.N. confronts a cash crunch, prepares to choose its next secretary-general and faces growing scrutiny from the administration, the debate over reform has become a battle over the institution's future: whether it remains on its current course or undergoes its most significant restructuring in decades.

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Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly warned of a growing liquidity crisis as the organization struggles with delayed member-state payments, including billions owed by the United States. At the same time, the Trump administration has made clear that future funding and support will be increasingly tied to reforms.

Bartos argues that pressure is already producing results.

Sitting at the U.N. headquarters, he points to what he calls historic achievements: roughly $570 million cut from the U.N.'s regular budget and 2,900 positions eliminated through negotiations among all 193 member states.

"Again, never happened before in 80 years," Bartos said.

"$570 million cut to the regular budget, approximately 3,000 posts cut. Unanimity. That's by consensus. All 193 countries had to come together."

For Bartos, the achievement is particularly striking because many diplomats viewed meaningful reform as impossible.

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"I promised you we wouldn't let you down," he recalled telling Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch months after his confirmation.

The reforms represent only what Bartos describes as a "down payment." The next phase is already underway.

As member states negotiate peacekeeping budgets for the coming year, the administration is pushing to reduce spending, streamline missions and eliminate programs it believes no longer serve their intended purpose.

One example, Bartos said, involves changing how the U.N. reimburses countries that contribute equipment to peacekeeping missions.

Previously, reimbursement was largely based on whether equipment was present.

"The methodology that the U.N. used to reimburse troop-contributing countries for equipment was: 'Is it there?'" Bartos said.

The United States pushed for a simple change: "You get reimbursed when the equipment is put into action to do work."

The reform could save roughly $30 million annually, according to U.S. estimates.

For Bartos, however, the dollar figure matters less than what it represents.

"It's a culture change," he said. "Being efficient, being respectful of every dollar, thinking about the taxpayers who fund all this."

That mindset is driving the administration's next major targets: employee compensation and pensions.

Bartos argues that the U.N.'s pension system and benefits structure consume resources that could otherwise be directed toward humanitarian operations.

Not everyone at the United Nations agrees with Bartos' assessment. U.N. officials argue that many of the reforms predate the Trump administration and were already being pursued under Secretary-General António Guterres.

"From day one, the Secretary-General has been committed to reforms," U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told Fox News Digital and added, "A few days ago, on 28 May, the Secretary-General told Member States that they need to act on structural reform, saying, "Genuine reform requires tough choices. This is no time for complacency, self-interest, or foot-dragging."

The UN80 initiative is Guterres' flagship reform effort, aimed at cutting duplication, reviewing mandates and making the UN system more efficient.

Still, Bartos argues the pace and scope of reform changed dramatically once the United States began applying pressure through budget negotiations and funding discussions.

"The U.N. is at a decision point," Bartos told Fox News Digital.

The debate comes as the organization faces mounting financial pressure. Dujarric said Guterres remains deeply concerned about ongoing liquidity challenges caused by delayed payments from member states, including the United States.

"Unlike a government, the U.N. cannot borrow or print money," Dujarric said, warning that the organization is expected to execute programs with funds it has not received while also returning unused funds at the end of the year.

Earlier in 2026, Guterres urged member states either to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time or overhaul the U.N.'s financial rules to prevent what he described as the risk of financial collapse.

The reforms are unfolding as the U.N. begins preparing for one of the most consequential transitions in years: the search for a successor to Guterres, whose term expires at the end of 2026.

According to Bartos, reform has become a central topic in discussions with prospective candidates.

The administration hopes the next secretary-general will embrace efforts to reduce bureaucracy and return the institution to what Bartos repeatedly describes as a "back-to-basics" approach.

The challenge, he acknowledges, is enormous.

Yet Bartos insists the experience has prepared him in unexpected ways.

Before entering government, he completed two Ironman triathlons while balancing work and family life.

"It's discipline, planning, prioritization," he said. "It's not dissimilar to budget negotiations."

The comparison may sound unusual, but it reflects how Bartos views the job: not as a sprint, but as an endurance race requiring patience, persistence and long-term thinking.

The mission also carries a personal dimension.

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After two unsuccessful statewide campaigns in Pennsylvania — first as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018 and later as a candidate in the state's 2022 Republican Senate primary — Bartos said he had largely stepped away from politics before returning to public service following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. 

Bartos recalled his wife urging him to get involved: "You've spent your life working on these issues. You need to do something."

He ultimately joined efforts to help elect Trump and later accepted the U.N. role.

Now, after tackling what many considered the first impossible mission — reforming the United Nations — Bartos is preparing for what may prove an even harder challenge.

Bartos said he was recently tasked by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz with helping lead efforts to combat what the administration views as entrenched anti-Israel bias across the U.N. system, including agencies, special rapporteurs and investigative bodies.

The debate intensified following the publication of the U.N. secretary-general's annual report on conflict-related sexual violence, which added Israeli security forces to the report's blacklist of parties credibly suspected of patterns of sexual violence in armed conflict. Israel rejected the allegations and announced it would suspend engagement with Secretary-General António Guterres' office.

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Responding to the report, Waltz told Fox News Digital that the UN has failed to address what he described as a longstanding pattern of institutional antisemitism.

"The U.N. was built in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, and yet, remarkably, it continues to be weaponized against the Jewish people and Israel," Waltz said. "Whether it's a U.N. official regularly referencing Israel as a 'stain on humanity' and attacking American companies for doing business with Israel, or reports that spread misinformation and propaganda, this antisemitism is completely unacceptable."

"It's been over a year since the secretary general signed off on an 'action plan' to fight antisemitism at the institution — it would be nice if the institution actually used it," he added.

Bartos argues that anti-Israel bias has become embedded across multiple U.N. bodies and says the administration is working to dismantle what he calls that infrastructure through diplomacy, funding decisions and engagement with the next generation of U.N. leadership.

"There is not a day that goes by that we're not working on that," Bartos said.

The United Nations rejects accusations that it has ignored antisemitism within its ranks.

Dujarric told Fox News Digital that the secretary-general launched a formal Action Plan to Combat Antisemitism in January 2025 aimed at tracking antisemitism within U.N. structures and evaluating whether the organization's policies and actions are effectively addressing the problem.

Dujarric also disputed suggestions that Guterres directly controls some of the U.N. bodies most frequently criticized by Israel and its supporters. 

"The U.N. mechanisms that you allude to, including human rights mechanisms, are created by and accountable to Member States," Dujarric said. "The Secretary-General has no authority over them."

"It is very important for Member States to actively engage in these mechanisms if they have concerns about their content and tone," he added.

"The U.N. is at a decision point," Bartos concluded. 

Whether the institution changes enough to satisfy its largest financial contributor remains one of the most consequential questions facing the organization — and the man charged with answering it insists the work is only beginning.

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Raúl Castro makes first public appearance since Trump administration charged him with murder

Former Cuban leader Raúl Castro made his first public appearance Friday since the Trump administration charged him with murder over the 1996 shoot-down of planes operated by a Cuban exile group.

Castro appeared on state television during an Interior Ministry celebration in Havana, according to Reuters.

The appearance came weeks after the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing Castro of playing a role in the downing of two aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile organization Brothers to the Rescue nearly 30 years ago.

Castro was charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder.

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Castro, who turned 95 on Wednesday, was last seen publicly during May Day celebrations in Havana, days before the indictment was unsealed.

Prior to his May Day appearance, Castro had remained out of public view for months, appearing only at a public ceremony in Cuba's capital in January honoring 32 Cuban soldiers killed during the U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The indictment centers on a February 1996 incident in which Cuban military aircraft allegedly shot down two unarmed civilian planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, killing four men: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales.

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Prosecutors allege the aircraft were flying outside Cuban territory when they were destroyed.

The indictment came amid rising tensions in the Caribbean and a series of comments from Trump and his surrogates hinting at possible regime change in the island nation.

President Donald Trump previously praised the indictment, saying Cuban Americans whose families suffered under the communist regime had waited decades for accountability.

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"We have big news on Cuba, as you know, with the indictment of Castro," Trump said. "A lot of people have suffered very big, very, very, at levels that few people would understand."

Trump also suggested tensions with Cuba would not escalate following the indictment.

"There won’t be escalation," he said. "We won’t have to."

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Still, the decision to indict Castro fueled comparisons to the pressure campaign Trump previously used against Maduro.

"At the very least, it means symbolically that he is now set up just as Nicolás Maduro was," Christine Balling, a Cuba expert at the Institute of World Politics and former advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command South, previously told Fox News Digital.

The U.S. indicted Maduro on narco-terrorism charges while tightening sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector, backing opposition efforts to remove him from power and increasing military operations in the Caribbean.

"I don't think that we are necessarily going to conduct the same operation," Balling said. "Raúl Castro is 94 years old. It might not be worth the trouble."

Still, Balling argued that the indictment sent "a very straightforward message that we are 100% behind the fall of the Castro regime."

Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy, Greg Wehner and Morgan Phillips, along with Fox News' David Spunt, Bill Mears and Jake Gibson contributed to this report. Reuters also contributed to this report.

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US, Shield of the Americas condemn 'ongoing efforts' to overthrow Bolivia's elected president amid unrest

The United States, along with the other countries that make up the Shield of the Americas, condemned the "ongoing efforts" in Bolivia to "overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected" government of President Rodrigo Paz on Friday.

"The member countries of Shield of the Americas denounce ongoing efforts to overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected government of President Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia," the statement read. "We stand with Paz’s democratic government as it fights back against attempts to drag Bolivia backwards through cynical efforts to prevent the delivery of food, medicine and other vital supplies to the Bolivian people through fake road blockades."

The statement added that "Mob rule cannot replace the decision that a majority of Bolivians made at the ballot box to turn the page on two decades of corrupt governments."

It also said that anyone who is funding protests with "dirty money" from drug trafficking and transnational crime "should be held accountable. Those who have legitimate grievances should take advantage of the government’s willingness to dialogue, and denounce those who would abuse their causes to regain power."

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The State Department made the joint statement along with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The statement comes as Bolivia's capital, La Paz, has been rocked by weeks of social unrest as mass protests have blocked streets in major cities amid economic inflation and rising fuel prices.

Bolivian Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas resigned Tuesday.

Upon taking office, Paz supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He further scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained that the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.

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The Trump administration has said drug traffickers are responsible for inciting the mass unrest.

Meanwhile, former President Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, the country's first Indigenous president who ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. "Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or ... an election in the next 90 days," he wrote on X.

For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia's central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.

On Thursday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X, that the War Department and the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), a recently established multinational military and political alliance, reject all attempts to overthrow the government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira six months into his term.

"The United States is watching. Bolivia must not allow itself to fall prey to the old status quo of narco-terrorist dominance in the region," Hegseth wrote. "We will continue to support our A3C partners like Bolivia to ensure that narco-terrorists are deterred from profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere."

Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

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Zelenskyy issues open letter to Putin proposing meeting as US 'fully focused' on Iran

In an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed meeting to reach a resolution to the years-long war between their two nations.

"We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention. Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you. I am proposing a meeting," Zelenskyy said in the letter.

"There are countries that have traditionally hosted leaders to resolve issues of war and peace. Switzerland, Türkiye, the countries of the Arab world — many are able and willing to host such a meeting. It is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be," he asserted.

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Zelenskyy suggested that Europe and the U.S. should also be involved in the peace process.

"Since the war is taking place in Europe, and since Ukraine needs security guarantees, while you also seek security guarantees for yourself, it would be logical to involve those who can genuinely serve as guarantors. We believe Europe should be part of this process — those who truly have the capacity to influence the situation. We also believe that the United States must be part of the process. This is what could help shape a new security architecture for our part of the world," he said.

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He indicated that Ukraine would agree to a ceasefire during the proposed negotiations.

"Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations. This is standard practice, and current developments around Iran only reinforce that point. An attempt to establish real silence is the best way to begin talking to one another. We believe it would not simply be an attempt, but a real ceasefire — if that is what you want," he noted.

He also suggested a prisoner swap between the two nations, noting, "Ukraine is ready for an all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war, and this could become a good prologue to ending the war. Serious steps must be taken to return civilians and children who were taken away during the war."

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"If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence. We will have those who support us. But you, too, will have to fight much harder for your own existence — not Russia’s, but your own. And this is not a threat from me or from Ukraine. It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: when Russia grows tired, change comes," Zelenskyy warned Putin.

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As Hezbollah rejects truce, families on Israel's northern border describe life under fire

Two days after another ceasefire was announced between Israel and U.S. terrorist designated group Hezbollah, Yulia Bar-Dan was standing outside her temporary home in Kibbutz Manara in northern Israel when the familiar sound of an interceptor echoed overhead. 

"There will probably be another siren soon," she told Fox News Digital.

Minutes later, an alert appeared on her phone warning residents in northern Israel to take shelter.

For Bar-Dan, the scene captured the reality of life on Israel's northern border nearly two years after Hezbollah joined the war against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. 

After Hezbollah entered the recent war in support of Iran, Washington launched a diplomatic effort aimed at turning the ceasefire into a broader arrangement for Lebanon. 

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Multiple rounds of talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials have taken place in Washington, and President Donald Trum repeatedly has announced ceasefire understandings aimed at restoring calm along the border. Residents of communities like Manara, Israel, say the rockets, drones and uncertainty never really stopped.

"A ceasefire is supposed to be on both sides," she said. "Not that Hezbollah keeps shooting at us and we just keep absorbing it."

When Fox News Digital first spoke to Bar-Dan in December 2024 during the war, she and her husband had fled Manara, Israel, with their three children and were living out of a single hotel room, unsure whether they would ever return home.

Today, roughly 200 of the kibbutz's 280 residents have returned, Bar-Dan said. But many, including Bar-Dan's family, still cannot live in their original homes because of war damage. 

Despite repeated ceasefire announcements, residents say normal life remains elusive.

"There hasn't really been a routine or a quiet day since February," she said.

Schools officially reopened in early June, but Bar-Dan decided not to send her children.

"They take the bus to school," she said. "What if there's a siren on the way? I can't take that chance."

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Her frustration is not directed at Hezbollah alone.

Like many residents interviewed by Fox News Digital, Bar-Dan says there is a growing disconnect between the reality experienced on the border and the reality described by politicians.

"It doesn't really matter where the decisions are being made," she said. "The decisions just need to match reality. Right now there is a decision, but the reality is completely different."

A year and a half after most of Manara's residents were evacuated amid fears of a Hezbollah invasion, community leader Yochai Wolfin says residents have developed their own name for the current situation. 

"We call it 'the ceasefire war,'" he said. 

The phrase has become common in the community.

First came a year and a half of evacuation. Then came the return home. Then came what Wolfin describes as three months of "fire within a ceasefire."

The uncertainty has become part of daily life.

Children study inside shelters. Parts of the kibbutz still lack protected rooms. Construction projects remain unfinished because contractors are reluctant to work so close to the border. 

He said many residents increasingly feel that the decisions determining their future are being made far from the communities that bear the consequences.

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"Who knows what tomorrow will bring?" Wolfin said. "We know who is calling the shots. We saw it a few days ago when Trump announced another ceasefire. But for us, the reality on the ground hasn't changed."

The comments come as Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned Thursday that northern Israel would remain unsafe as long as Israeli strikes continue in Lebanon, according to Reuters.

In a written statement broadcast on June 4, 2026, Qassem condemned the Washington-mediated framework as "absurd, humiliating, and insulting," calling it a roadmap for surrender.

For residents of Israel's northern border communities, the statements reinforced what many say they have been experiencing for months: a ceasefire that exists on paper but not in daily life.

Naor Shamia, who heads Manara's emergency response team, says residents increasingly worry that temporary emergency measures are becoming permanent.

"The fear isn't today," he said. "The fear is that this becomes years. We are in a deadlock."

Across the border region, similar concerns are heard.

In the community of Adamit, resident Yael Cohen-Arazi described the contrast between the beauty surrounding her and the reality of living under constant threat.

"Every morning I wake up and think I'm living in paradise," she said in footage provided to Fox News Digital by the Israeli news agency TPS-IL. "Then there are the explosions that shake my soul."

Her children, she said, have spent so much of their lives under fire that they no longer know what normal looks like.

"I tell them there are children who don't live like this," she said.

Back in Manara, Israel, another alert interrupted the afternoon.

Bar-Dan says she is not angry anymore. Mostly, she is tired and sad.

"I feel bad for the soldiers," she said. "Every day there is another casualty, and there is still no solution."

Yet she insists she is staying.

"This is our home," she said. "Someone has to live on the borders of this country."

Then another explosion sounded in the distance.

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Canada's Carney pledges action on antisemitism amid backlash over new anti-hate council members

Prime Minister Mark Carney warned this week that Jewish Canadians are being "brutally targeted," while also announcing a new anti-racism council that reportedly includes two members with troubling views on the Jewish state.

Following Carney's speech on antisemitism, critics reacted with anger at the makeup of the council and questioned how a body meant to fight hate and antisemitism includes two members who are reportedly hostile to the concerns of the Jewish community.

Omar Alghabra, a former Liberal party cabinet minister and Member of Parliament, has faced criticism for publicly mourning former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The former leader of the PLO was described by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as "the father of modern terrorism." In the days following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, he declined a request to condemn them, when asked by Canada's Rebel News. 

Alghabra has also faced scrutiny over past comments regarding Israel. In 2005, he criticized Toronto's police chief for participating in and leading a "Walk with Israel" event, according to The Jerusalem Post. He described the event as "a show of solidarity for a foreign state currently in the midst of an unresolved conflict" and referred to Israel as "a country that is conducting a brutal and the longest contemporary military occupation in the world."

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Canada's opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, pointed to a separate encounter with him involving a terrorist organization. "I remember Mr. Alghabra lobbying me before he was in politics to keep Hezbollah legal, so I'm not sure that he's the right guy to combat antisemitism," he told reporters. 

Howeer, the Jerusalem Post reported that Alghabra had described Hamas as a terrorist organization during a 2016 parliamentary debate.

The other controversial member of the council, Avnish Nanda, represented efforts to keep a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Alberta in place. Critics of the encampment argued it created a hostile atmosphere for Jewish students following Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. 

In April, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights released a report showing that 6,800 antisemitic incidents took place in the country in 2025, representing a 9.4% increase over 2024. On average, this represented 18.6 incidents a day and was the "highest volume" the group has recorded since it began tracking incidents.

"I'm a Canadian-born Jew serving as rabbi of the vibrant Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem community in Montreal, and I was truly shocked to learn that among the people chosen to sit on Prime Minister Carney's newest council is Omar Alghabra, who publicly mourned the death of Yasser Arafat and remained silent when asked to condemn the attacks of October 7th," Rabbi Zolly Claman of Montreal's Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Congregation told Fox News Digital.

"Canadian Jews are struggling to understand how our prime minister believed this would be a constructive appointment," Claman said.

When announcing the new Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, Carney stated, "The council has a clear mission to combat racism and hate in all their forms and to guide the Government of Canada as part of our efforts to build a fairer, more just, more inclusive society," He also said that, "The crisis of antisemitism in Canada today is specific, it’s severe, and it demands a targeted response. And that is what our government is fully committed to," Reuters reported.

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When asked about Prime Minister Mark Carney's announcement, B'nai Brith Canada, one of the country's leading Jewish advocacy organizations said that while it welcomed the prime minister's acknowledgment of rising antisemitism, it believes additional action is needed to address what it views as a growing crisis facing Canada's Jewish community.

"B'nai Brith Canada acknowledges the Prime Minister's solidarity with the Jewish community," Simon Wolle, the organization's chief executive officer, told Fox News Digital. "He was right to mandate that the Special Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion prioritize researching and combating antisemitism."

At the same time, Wolle questioned whether the newly announced council has the authority and scope necessary to effectively address the problem.

"But we are concerned because the council does not have the power or scale to address this crisis in an appropriate and meaningful manner," he said. "It is an important aspect of the government's approach to combating antisemitism, but it is not sufficient."

Wolle added that B'nai Brith Canada will "continue to call on the government to establish a National Emergency Task Force on Antisemitism, among other initiatives, because the Jewish community needs immediate action, not just words during this time of violence, hate, and threats to our right to exist and participate in Canadian society," he said. Wolle did not offer comment on either Omar Alghabra and Avnish Nanda appointments.

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Canadian Jewish activist Ariella Kimmel also questioned the effectiveness of the newly announced council.

"The Jewish community makes up just 1.2% of Canada's population, yet is the target of 75% of hate crimes, which is astoundingly disproportionate. Canada does not have a hate problem; it has a Jew-hatred problem. There is a very specific virus spreading rapidly across this country, and our prime minister is administering a broad catch-all antibiotic that will not help."

Kimmel said his speech lacked concrete solutions and failed to address what she described as growing hostility toward Jewish communities.

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"There was nothing on the vile chants we hear on the streets, nothing about the mobs that target Jewish neighborhoods, nothing calling for police to enforce the laws that already exist," she said.

"What Canada doesn't need is another special council on racism. We need to address the real elephant in the room, the targeting of Jews using 'Zionism' as an excusable reason, led by radicalized progressives and Islamist fundamentalists."

Fox News Digital reached out to Carney’s office and Omar Alghabra and Avnish Nanda for comment.

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Sherpa missing for a week on Everest found crawling toward base camp after his family begins funeral rites

A Sherpa guide whose family had already begun funeral rituals after he vanished on Mount Everest was found alive and crawling toward base camp nearly a week later, surviving alone on the world's highest peak without food, water or supplemental oxygen in what rescuers called "nothing short of a miracle."

Dawa Sherpa, 52, disappeared around May 29 while descending Everest after turning back short of the summit with a Polish climber he was guiding. The client made it safely to base camp, but Dawa had not, triggering fears that he had died on the mountain.

A cleanup crew from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee found him Thursday morning crawling through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, one of the most dangerous sections of Everest, just above base camp, Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions told The Associated Press.

Rescuers carried him to safety, gave him food and water, and flew him by helicopter to a hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter were waiting.

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By that point, his family had already lost hope.

His teenage daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, told the outlet that relatives were in the middle of funeral rites when news of the rescue broke.

"When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father," she said. "So to be certain we asked for photos to be sent and then only we were sure and very happy."

His wife, Damu Sherpa, added that the family learned he was alive through local news reports and phone calls from friends.

"We first heard that he was still alive on the local news and from a person we know who called with the news that ... he is being brought down," she said.

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Dawa was still wearing his climbing jacket when rescuers found him. His family said he is being treated for frostbite and other complications but is conscious and able to speak.

"He recognized me … is good and speaks," his daughter told Reuters. "We are happy."

The Nepal Mount Everest hiking company called his survival extraordinary.

"Dawa survived alone for nearly a week without food, water, or supplemental oxygen navigating the treacherous Khumbu Icefall (even after the fixed ladders were removed for the season)," the company said in a social media post. "This is nothing short of a miracle."

It was unclear how Dawa became separated from his client during the descent or why there was a delay in launching a search team when he went missing last week. Helicopters were eventually dispatched but failed to locate him.

His rescue came at the end of a record-breaking Everest climbing season. More than 1,000 climbers and guides reached the summit this year after Nepal issued a record 494 permits.

Officials have said five climbers and guides died on Everest during the season, according to Reuters.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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