Unicef: Water shortage in the Gaza Strip a matter of life and death
Published: Tuesday, Nov 21st 2023, 12:11
Zurück zu Live Feed
The water shortage in the Gaza Strip is taking on dramatic proportions, according to the UN children's aid organization Unicef. The risk of diseases spreading is growing dramatically every day, said Unicef spokesman James Elder on Tuesday.
He spoke to reporters in Geneva via video link from Cairo. There are already thousands of cases of chickenpox, diarrhea, respiratory and skin diseases, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported. There are no cases of cholera, as the corresponding bacterium is not circulating in the Gaza Strip.
According to updated estimates by Unicef, around 700,000 people are still living in the north of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has been trying to evacuate for weeks. Many have only three liters of water a day, the minimum for drinking, washing and cooking is 15 liters.
Unicef and WHO are urgently calling for more fuel to operate desalination plants and water pumps and for wastewater treatment. Whether water and wastewater treatment is restored will determine "whether thousands or tens of thousands of children survive or die", said Elder. Unicef makes no distinction between children and adolescents. All minors are referred to as children. According to his figures, there are around 800,000 minors among the more than 1.7 million displaced people.
Elder recalled that the devastating conditions in the Gaza Strip include more than 30 children and young people who were kidnapped by terrorists from Israel on October 7.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic