New York, SANA _One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and cases are increasing every day, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned.
The United Nations News website quoted UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini as saying: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
“When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food and care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold,” Mr. Lazzarini added.
In turn, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN’s Secretary-General pointed out that there is a large percentage of malnutrition cases in Gaza, reaching 9 percent, while it was 6 percent last June and 2.4 percent in February.
Edouard Beigbeder,the UNICEF Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa, also pointed out that children in Gaza are dying of hunger, and acute malnutrition is spreading among Gaza’s children faster than aid reaches them under the eyes of the world.
The UN official added that the number of children reported to have died from malnutrition since last April rose from 52 to 80, a 54 percent increase in less than three months.
He called for the need to allow the United Nations-led humanitarian response to work fully through unhindered access to children in need of assistance.
UN officials point to the inability of the organization and its partners to deliver adequate aid to Gaza due to a number of interconnected factors, including bureaucratic, logistical, administrative, and other operational obstacles imposed by the Israeli authorities, and access restrictions within Gaza.
Khadega
