Children suffer from acute malnutrition. The head of Unicef calls getting aid to Gaza a “bureaucratic mess”.
Over 13,000 children have died in the Gaza Strip since the terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response.
The head of the UN children's organization Unicef told about it Catherine Russell of the American CBS News in the interview.
Russell described the number of children who died as “an enormously appalling number”.
“Thousands have also lost one or both parents. They are alone, taking care of their younger siblings. It's a scary situation. The effects of that as children grow up are huge,” Russell stated.
“We have not seen such a number of dead children in almost any other conflict in the world.”
According to Russell, many children also suffer from acute malnutrition. According to Unicef, one in three children under the age of two suffers from acute malnutrition. UNRWA, a Palestinian organization under the UN, has also told the same number.
According to the UN, a quarter of Gazans are on the brink of starvation.
“I've seen it in the children's wards [sairaaloissa] children suffering from severe malnutrition. The wards are very quiet because the children, the babies, don't even have the strength to cry,” said Russell.
Russell also reminded that if children suffering from famine survive, the long-term lack of food and water affects, among other things, children's cognitive abilities in the long term.
“It's a lifelong challenge if they make it,” Russell said.
Russell's according to him, getting aid shipments to Gaza is a “big bureaucratic problem”.
“Sometimes it's almost Kafkaesque trying to figure out how we get things [Gazaan] in this bureaucratic mess.”
On Friday, the cargo of the aid ship that arrived from Cyprus began to be unloaded in Gaza. The cargo is about 200 tons of foodstuffs for the residents of Gaza. However, it is still unclear how the subsidies will be distributed to the lane.
Israel has made it difficult to get humanitarian aid to Gaza by, for example, keeping some of the border crossings closed. Access to emergency aid has also been hampered by the security situation and Israel's endless inspection processes for aid shipments.
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