The number of people without access to drinking water in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has risen from 9.5 million to 16.2 million in just five months, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday in a report. release.
The humanitarian emergency still affects children in the Sahel regionadds the United Nations agency.
“Children in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel could die in very high numbers, if urgent assistance is not providedat a time when severe malnutrition and the risk of water-borne diseases overlap,” warns Unicef, which released the statement during World Water Week.
Past records show that when high levels of severe acute malnutrition occur in children at the same time as outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera or diarrhoea, infant mortality rises dramatically and tragically. “When water is unavailable or unsafe, the risks to children multiply exponentially,” says UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, quoted in the note.
“In the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, millions of children are one illness away from a catastrophe,” continues Catherine Russell.
In Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, drought, armed conflict and instability”are creating a situation of insecurity in access to waterwith 40 million children facing high or extremely high levels of water vulnerability.”
“According to the latest data from the WHO [Organização Mundial de Saúde]Already more children are dying as a result of unsafe water and sanitation in the Sahel than anywhere else in the world.”
The note also highlights that more than 2.8 million children in the two regions – Horn of Africa and Sahel – “already suffer from severe acute malnutrition, which means they have up to 11 times more risk of death from transmitted diseases for the water, what well-nourished children.”
UNICEF points out that has only 3% of the funds needed to continue “Life-saving assistance and resilient multisectoral services for children and their families in urgent need of help in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.”
“Of this amount, the budget for assistance in water, sanitation and climate resilience is very small. The call to respond to the needs of vulnerable children and families in terms of water, sanitation and hygiene programs in the central Sahel region is only 22% funded”, the organization stresses.
Help needed by children in both regions includes “improve access to water resistant to weatheringsanitation and hygiene services, drilling to create reliable sources of underground water, development of the use of solar systems, screening and treatment of malnourished children, and expansion of prevention services”, concludes Unicef.
Source: Observadora
