Ramallah, February 20 (Prensa Latina) Hundreds of thousands of children and pregnant women are at risk of death in Gaza today due to malnutrition and food shortages, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) warned today.
The situation is particularly serious in the north of the territory, where one in six children under the age of two suffers from acute malnutrition, the organization emphasized in a statement published here.
Unicef cites a new analysis by the World Nutrition Group on the situation in the coastal enclave, which has been under attack by the Israeli army for more than 130 days.
Food and drinking water have become incredibly scarce and disease is widespread, threatening the nutrition and immunity of women and children, the document stressed.
Nutritional surveys in shelters and health centers in the north found that 15.6 percent, or one in six children under two years of age, suffer from acute malnutrition.
Of these, almost three percent are affected by severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.
“The Gaza Strip is facing an explosion in preventable child mortality,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF deputy executive director for humanitarian and response operations.
Chaiban warned that the situation in the besieged area would worsen if the conflict continued.
The fund estimates that 90 percent of children under two and 95 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women experience severe food poverty.
95 percent of households in Gaza limit meals and portion sizes and 64 percent feed only once a day.
Lack of drinking water and inadequate fluids for cooking and hygiene purposes exacerbate poor nutrition, he noted.
UNICEF said households surveyed had, on average, access to less than one liter of drinking water per person per day, although the figure rises to at least three every 24 hours by UN standards.
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