Destroyed hospitals, missing food, impossible treatments: in southern Gaza where thousands of children die of malnutrition

Life-saving treatments have become impossible, hospitals inaccessible: a silent massacre of children is taking place in southern Gaza. There are 3,000 at risk of dying from malnutrition

ROME – Almost 3,000 children have been cut off from care for acute, moderate and severe malnutrition in the southern Gaza Strip, putting them at risk of death, while violence and displacement continue tocompromise access to health facilities and servicesfor desperate families. This number, based on reports from UNICEF’s nutrition partners, is equivalent to around three-quarters of the estimated 3,800 children who were receiving life-saving care in the south before the conflict escalated. in Rafah. The looming risk of more vulnerable children falling ill from malnutrition is equally worrying. While there has been a slight improvement in the delivery of food aid to the north, humanitarian access in the south has declined dramatically. The first results of recent malnutrition checks in the central and southern governorates of Gaza indicate thatcases of moderate and severe malnutrition have increasedsince the second week of May, when aid delivery and humanitarian access began. been significantly limited by the escalation of the Rafah offensive.

“Horrific images continue to emerge from Gaza of children dying before the eyes of their families due to the ongoing lack of food, nutritional supplies and the destruction of health services – declared the Director UNICEF Regional Representative for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr – If treatment is not resumed quickly for these 3,000 children, they run the immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, of contracting complications potentially lethal and to join the growing list of boys and girls killed by this senseless man-made deprivation.”

The risk of an increase in cases of malnutrition comes at the same time as malnutrition treatment services are collapsing. Today only two of the three stabilization centers in the Gaza Strip that treat severely malnourished children are functioning. Meanwhile, plans to open new centers have been delayed due to ongoing military operations in the Strip. Treating a child for acute malnutrition typically takes six to eight weeks of around-the-clock care and requires special therapeutic food, safe water and other medical support. Malnourished children are at greater risk of disease and other health problems due to limited access to drinking water, overflowing sewage, damage to infrastructure and lack of hygiene items . Water production in the Gaza Strip is now less than a quarter of what it was before hostilities escalated in October.

“Our calls about rising child mortality due to an avoidable combination of malnutrition, dehydration and disease should have mobilized immediate action to save children’s lives, yet this devastation continues,” Khodr said. hospitals destroyed, care interrupted and supplies scarce, we are destined for more suffering and deaths of children”.
Since October 2023, Unicef has reached tens of thousands of women and children with prevention and treatment of malnutrition, including the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods, high-energy biscuits and micronutrient supplements for pregnant women containing iron and other essential nutrients.

“UNICEF has pre-positioned additional nutritional supplies that will arrive in the Gaza Strip, if access allows,” Khodr said. “UN agencies are seeking assurances that humanitarian operations can safely collect and distribute aid to children and their families without interruption. We need better operating conditions in the field, with more security and fewer restrictions. But ultimately, it is a ceasefire that children need most“.