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Gaza Strip: famine hits Palestinian children severely
Children are dying from malnutrition or dehydration in Gaza, notes UNICEF. The organization is warning again, Sunday March 3, about the humanitarian catastrophe within the Palestinian enclave. Illustration at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
(franceinfo)
Children are dying from malnutrition or dehydration in Gaza, notes UNICEF. The organization is warning again, Sunday March 3, about the humanitarian catastrophe within the Palestinian enclave. Illustration at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Doctors had almost become accustomed to power cuts in Gaza’s hospitals. They now have to face infant starvation. In a pediatric unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, four babies died within the week, and several others are in intensive care. “My nephew suffers from severe dehydration from lack of milk. Her mother breastfeeds her, but she herself doesn’t have anything to eat“, confides Rabab Hamoudah.
One in six children under 2 suffers from acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip
Apart from saline or glucose infusions, which are also lacking, the hospital seems helpless, and the mothers even more so. Starvation also affects older children. Malnutrition leads to sometimes tragic medical complications, which are increasingly observed by doctors. “A child is supposed to eat three meals a day. When there is just one, it is sure to trigger infections, even blood diseases“, explains Dr. Imad Dardonah, pediatrician at Kamal Adwan Hospital. The WHO estimates that one in six children under the age of 2 suffers from acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip.
