Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 12th April. UNICEF spokesman Tess Ingram said on Thursday that advocating for a ceasefire is the best way to support the people of Gaza, including children in the north who are dying of hunger.
Tess Ingram was part of a UNICEF team that was headed to northern Gaza on Tuesday when their vehicle was hit by live ammunition while waiting at a checkpoint.
“Luckily, myself and my colleagues, we were all safe. But this just underscores how dangerous it is for humanitarian aid workers in Gaza at the moment: that incidents like this continue to happen when they absolutely shouldn’t,” she said speaking from Rafah in the south.
UN has warned of looming famine in Gaza, where roughly 70 per cent of the population in the north is going hungry, and as access restrictions persist.
Ms. Ingram said the UNICEF team had hoped to proceed to the region “because it was such a critical mission with nutrition products for the children who were malnourished in the north of Gaza, among other things.”
They said that after waiting at the holding point for at least another two hours, they decided moving forward was no longer feasible as there would not be enough time to conduct all their activities, and returned to Rafah.
She stressed the critical need for more aid corridors and, above all, for the fighting to end.
Tess Ingram said that it’s tragic to see anybody suffering from malnutrition, which is such a painful condition, let alone in a place where malnutrition was almost non-existent before October. And it’s now skyrocketed in the north of Gaza, because of disruptions to food production, but also because of restrictions on aid access to that area. We’ve really struggled to get up there with aid.
She said “we know that children are dying of malnutrition there. At least 23 children have reportedly died at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is where we were trying to bring these nutrition treatments on Tuesday.
Comments are closed.