UNICEF: Children in Gaza only have access to 10% of the water they need to survive

Recently displaced children in the southern Gaza Strip only have access to between 1.5 and 2 liters of water a day, well below the limits needed to survive, according to estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund ( UNICEF, for its acronym in English).

According to humanitarian standards, the minimum amount of water needed in an emergency is 15 liters, including water for drinking, washing and cooking, the organization reports. For survival alone, the estimated minimum is three liters a day.

“Access to sufficient quantities of clean water is a matter of life and death, and the children of Gaza barely have a drop to drink,” said Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF. «Children and their families have to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinized or contaminated. Without clean water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days,” she added.

According to the organization, approximately half of the internally displaced people who arrive in Rafa are children. Authorities have reportedly already recorded almost 20 times the monthly average of cases of diarrhea among children under five, as well as an increase in cases of scabies, lice, chickenpox, skin rashes and more than 160,000 cases of acute respiratory infections. .

“We are doing everything we can to meet the needs of the people of the Gaza Strip, but the equipment and materials we have been able to provide are far from sufficient. Constant bombing and restrictions on materials and fuel that can enter the territory are preventing critical advances. We urgently need these materials to repair damaged water systems,” said Russell. With RT

Related