ISLAMABAD: Regional director of Unicef for South Asia George Laryea-Adjei said on Friday that hundreds more children would lose their lives in the coming weeks if international support does not come in to scale up interventions.

“The boys and girls of Pakistan desperately need our support to survive, and yet the international appeal for Pakistan remains severely underfunded,” the Unicef regional chief observed after visiting flood-affected areas in the country.

As the catastrophic climate disaster continues to upend the lives of millions of children in Pakistan, it is the most vulnerable boys and girls who are paying the steepest price. “The children I have met here have lost everything: loved ones, cherished schoolbooks, the only homes they ever knew, their schools, their sense of security.”

The Unicef official warned that without urgent global action, the climate devastation seen in Pakistan was feared to be only a precursor of many more child survival catastrophes to come.

International appeal for Pakistan remains ‘severely underfunded’, says official

Nearly 10 million children need immediate life-saving support and hundreds have already lost their lives. Over one in nine children here suffers from severe acute malnutrition — a life-threatening condition. Panic-stricken parents are searching for food to bring even a simple meal home to their children, he said.

The Unicef regional director said as winter looms, boys and girls crammed inside flimsy tents, when they were lucky enough to have one, would continue to succumb to diseases which in normal times were preventable and treatable.

He said: “As the floodwaters and the media attention recede, the crisis in Pakistan has become an acute child survival crisis. Frail, hungry children are fighting a losing battle against severe acute malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid, acute respiratory infections, and painful skin conditions. As well as physical ailments, the longer the crisis continues, the greater the risk is to children’s mental health.”

Sharing his experience after visiting a relief camp, the Unicef official said, “In a camp in Sohbatpur, Balochistan, I met Farida, who had fled her beloved home with her five children when the floods struck. She was worried sick about her one-year-old daughter, Rasheeda, who was visibly frail and weakened by acute malnutrition.”

“Children have played no part in creating the climate catastrophe in South Asia, yet they are the ones paying the biggest price. This climate catastrophe is threatening the health, wellbeing, and the very survival of over 616 million boys and girls who call this region their home.

“Governments must urgently protect the critical water, sanitation and hygiene, health and education services on which boys and girls so direly depend. They must also urgently make sure every boy and girl has the skills and knowledge they need to survive and thrive in a climate-changed world,” the Unicef official said.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2022