Children at risk after Pakistan floods (more than 12,000 children have become acutely malnourished)

[Turborama]

Source: RTE (Ireland)

Sunday, September 19 2010 -

The United Nations has said more than 12,000 children have become acutely malnourished in Pakistan's flooded areas.

Many have been exposed to contaminated water, and are vulnerable to disease after seven weeks without proper food and medical care.

The charity Save the Children has warned that many of these children will die if help is not provided immediately.

The warning comes as senior officials from around the world meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York today to discuss the global response to the crisis.

Read more: http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0919/pakistan.html

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Pakistan 'faces huge hunger crisis'

09/19/2010

=snip=

Exposed to contaminated water, many of (the children) remain vulnerable to disease after seven weeks without proper food and medical care.

Senior officials from around the world will meet United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon in New York on Saturday to discuss the global response. As they do so, charity leaders warned that the risk to children from malnutrition is set to increase in the weeks to come.

Save the Children's country director in Pakistan Mohammed Qazilbash said: "The number of malnourished and critically sick children will rise dramatically in October and November as the food crisis takes its toll.

"These children have weakened immune system because of the shortage of food, making them very vulnerable to disease."

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2010/09/19/pakistan-faces-huge-hunger-crisis-115875-22571565/

Pakistan flooding crisis: Not over yet (CNN photo Gallery)
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/photos.pakistan.flooding/index.html?hpt=C1

Aid falling short in flood-devastated Pakistan
By Moni Basu, CNN September 18, 2010
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/pakistan.flood.aid/index.html?hpt=T1

[OhioChick]

1. Truly heartbreaking...

It breaks my heart to hear of children ill and starving. :(

[Turborama]

2. Videos from CNN International

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/09/17/bs.pakistan.flood.wald.pleitgen.cnn">BackStory: The story behind the photos from CNN's Fred Pleitgen and Jonathan Wald

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/09/15/bs.pleitgen.pak.helo.cnn">Helicopter tour: Flood-ravaged Pakistan

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/09/16/pleitgen.pakistan.holbrooke.visit.cnn">Hungry and homeless in Pakistan

[sabrina 1]

3. This tragedy is becoming worse and worse as time goes by.

[Turborama]

7. Yes, as predicted, this is unfortunately true.

Looks like the number in the OP was a massive underestimation.

Kids without food in Pakistan floods face death

By MARGIE MASON - AP Medical Writer

=snip=

More than 100,000 children left homeless by Pakistan's floods are in danger of dying because they simply do not have enough to eat, according to UNICEF. Children already weak from living on too little food in poor rural areas before the floods are fighting to stay alive, as diarrhea, respiratory diseases and malaria attack their emaciated bodies.

=snip=

The floodwaters that swamped a section of Pakistan larger than Florida continue to inundate new areas, forcing even more people to flee. At least 18 million have already been affected, and nearly half of them are homeless. Many have been herded into crude, crowded camps or left to fend for themselves along roads.

But doctors warn the real catastrophe is moving much slower than the murky water. About 105,000 kids younger than 5 at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition over the next six months, the United Nations Children's Fund estimates.

"You're seeing children who were probably very close to the brink of being malnourished and the emergency has just pushed them over the edge," says Erin Boyd, a UNICEF emergency nutritionist working in southern Pakistan. "There's just not the capacity to treat this level of severe acute malnutrition."


Full article: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/09/19/1442531/kids-without-food-in-pakistan.html

[sabrina 1]

10. It was obvious in some of the photos early on that some of the children

were not doing well. After a month or so, they began to look malnourished and it's no surprise that things would only get worse. This is so sad ... :cry:

[Vehl]

4. The floods have not subsided yet? :(

supplying Children and the elderly should be made the priority during these relief efforts.

I wonder if water purification tablets and dry rations can be provided to these people as an immediate measure before slow aid relief gets to them? Waiting for gradual aid to trickle down might be too late for some of these kids

:(

[Turborama]

5. There's something about this picture I found very powerful...

Children displaced by flooding stand beside a rope bed while taking refuge with their family
on an embankment in the village of Kali Mori, some 32 km (20 miles) from Dadu, in Pakistan's
Sindh province September 19, 2010.

[OhioChick]

6. A "rope bed?"

:(

[Rhiannon12866]

8. K&R. Can't believe that these vulnerable children are still in such dire straits...

Publicity is the key here, so that the rest of the world sees what's going on... ;(

[ihavenobias]

9. Kick n/t