UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell has described Rafah as “a city of children with nowhere safe to go”.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday of the “catastrophic risks” facing some 600,000 boys and girls in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, if they come under widespread attack that the Israeli army has already is completing shortly after the first evacuations were ordered in this area.
Before the war, about 250,000 people lived in Rafah, but the UN estimates that 1.2 million people now live in the city, mainly from other parts of the Strip. The overcrowding is such that there are about 20,000 people per square kilometer, a density practically double that of New York.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell has described Rafah as “a city of children with nowhere safe to go”.
“If large-scale military operations begin, children will be at risk not only from violence, but also from chaos and panic, at a time when their physical and mental condition is already weakened,” he said in a statement.
“Hundreds of thousands of boys and girls now overcrowded in Rafah are injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized or living with disabilities,” insists Russell, who has called for “protection” and basic facilities and services for Palestinian children.
The UN already estimates that almost 8,000 children under the age of two in Rafah suffer from acute malnutrition, while around 175,000 children under the age of five, nine in ten, suffer from at least one infectious disease.
Large-scale offensive
For his part, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland, fears that the large-scale offensive on Rafah represents “the deadliest phase” of a conflict that has already claimed more than 34,000 lives. According to the latest report from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 14,000 of these victims are believed to be children, UNICEF recalls.
Egeland has emphasized that those affected have no “guarantees of safety, refuge or return,” which for the head of the NRC would amount to forced displacement.
“Any Israeli military operation on Rafah, which has become the largest cluster of displaced persons camps in the world, could lead to mass atrocities,” Egeland added.
Source: EITB
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
