More than 100,000 children could die in Afghanistan

[Kevin Robert Dean]

This story also appeared in the UK's "Independent"    

                                                      

Afghanistan-Children-

UNICEF   /WRD/   

http://www.irna.com/newshtm/eng/25215241.htm          

                     
More than 100,000 children could die in Afghanistan:
UNICEF 

Islamabad, Oct 17, IRNA - Up to 100,000 more children
will die this winter in Afghanistan if aid does not
reach them in sufficient quantities in the next few
weeks, the head of UNICEF Afghanistan, Eric Larouche,
has said. 

The mortality rate for Afghan children could jump by a
third this winter, he warned.    

"The reason that I say 'more' is because 300,000
Afghan children already die each year, largely of
preventable causes, [such as] measles, exposure,
severe malnutrition, or diarrhoea that can be cured
with a 10-cent sachet of oral rehydration salts," he
said.            

Speaking to journalists in Islamabad, Larouche said
Afghan children were 25 times more likely to die
before the age of five than an American, French or
Saudi Arabian child. "Every 30 minutes, a young
Afghan mother dies giving birth, leaving children with
an irreplaceable void," he said, adding that more than
half of Afghan children were currently malnourished.  

  

According to a UNICEF survey in 1997, 95 percent of
children living in Kabul had witnessed violence with
their own eyes, seven out of 10 had lost a family
member, and 90 percent believed that they would die
during the fighting.

Larouche said Afghan children were the most
traumatised in the world. 

                     
Despite all the conventions ratified internationally
that call for their protection, another generation of
Afghan children was witnessing and enduring the
violence of war, he said.

"We continue to fail them, and in fact mock them, I
would say, with a sympathy that fails to bear fruit,"
he said. As UNICEF struggles to provide emergency aid
inside Afghanistan along with other international
organisations, Larouche noted that only half the US
$36 million requested by UNICEF in response to the
Afghan crisis had been received to date.    
TK/MMZ/JB                                             

               
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http://www.irna.com/newshtm/eng/25215241.htm  

=====
Kevin Dean
Buffalo, NY
ICQ: 8616001
http://www.yaysoft.com

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