UNICEF says millions of Afghan children need essential services

 

MONITORING (SW) – The UNICEF has said millions of Afghan children need essential services.

Afghanistan was already one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child. Over the past year, the situation has become even more desperate as conflict, drought, and COVID-19 have collided to create an humanitarian emergency.

UNICEF has been on the ground in Afghanistan for 65 years with offices nationwide and a range of partners that support us in delivering assistance to the most vulnerable, especially children, said the agency.

It announced to now scale up its lifesaving programmes for children and women – including through the delivery of health, nutrition and safe water to displaced families.

Children should not pay for conflict with their childhoods. Afghanistan’s children need peace.

Against a backdrop of conflict and insecurity, children are living in communities that are running out of water because of drought. They’re missing out on life-saving vaccines. An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of 2021. Many of these children are so malnourished they lie in hospital beds, too weak to grasp an outstretched finger.

Millions of children continue to need essential services, including primary healthcare, lifesaving vaccines against polio and measles, nutrition, education, protection, shelter, water and sanitation. UNICEF therefore requires urgent funding to ensure the country’s health systems don’t collapse.

ENDS

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