PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
US: UNICEF demands action to save South Sudanese children
New York, US (PANA) - UNICEF has warned that hundreds of thousands of children in South Sudan's most crisis-torn areas are at imminent risk of death and disease, including the threat of cholera.
UNICEF also said the children are suffering from malnutrition due to the conflict in the country.
in a statement on Monday ahead of the UN-backed Oslo Humanitarian Pledging Conference, set to convene in the Norwegian capital on Tuesday, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Yoka Brandt said: "The dream of a safe and peaceful South Sudan is becoming a living nightmare for its children".
She said five months into the conflict, around 80 per cent of children under the age of five in the three most conflict-affected states - Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity - are at heightened risk of disease and death.
She also said despite 80,000 people having been fully vaccinated against cholera, the South Sudanese Ministry of Health has confirmed a cholera outbreak in Juba.
Ms. Brandt said cholera caseload is doubling every day, providing troubling proof that the deadly disease is spreading, adding that UNICEF has helped set up a cholera treatment centre, and is supplying tents for triage and patient care, hygiene equipment, clean water and oral
rehydration solution.
"Right now, the children of South Sudan need humanitarian assistance; they need their leaders to protect their lives, their rights, and their futures and they need the world to listen and demand action on their behalf," she added.
The world's youngest nation has been enmeshed in a crisis which began in mid-December 2013 as a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Mr. Riek Machar, who had been forced from office earlier that year.
The in-fighting erupted into full-fledged conflict believed to have left thousands of people dead and forced tens of thousands more to seek refuge at UN bases around the country.
The political rivals signed an accord two weeks ago to end the fighting.
-0- PANA AA/SEG 19May2014
UNICEF also said the children are suffering from malnutrition due to the conflict in the country.
in a statement on Monday ahead of the UN-backed Oslo Humanitarian Pledging Conference, set to convene in the Norwegian capital on Tuesday, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Yoka Brandt said: "The dream of a safe and peaceful South Sudan is becoming a living nightmare for its children".
She said five months into the conflict, around 80 per cent of children under the age of five in the three most conflict-affected states - Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity - are at heightened risk of disease and death.
She also said despite 80,000 people having been fully vaccinated against cholera, the South Sudanese Ministry of Health has confirmed a cholera outbreak in Juba.
Ms. Brandt said cholera caseload is doubling every day, providing troubling proof that the deadly disease is spreading, adding that UNICEF has helped set up a cholera treatment centre, and is supplying tents for triage and patient care, hygiene equipment, clean water and oral
rehydration solution.
"Right now, the children of South Sudan need humanitarian assistance; they need their leaders to protect their lives, their rights, and their futures and they need the world to listen and demand action on their behalf," she added.
The world's youngest nation has been enmeshed in a crisis which began in mid-December 2013 as a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Mr. Riek Machar, who had been forced from office earlier that year.
The in-fighting erupted into full-fledged conflict believed to have left thousands of people dead and forced tens of thousands more to seek refuge at UN bases around the country.
The political rivals signed an accord two weeks ago to end the fighting.
-0- PANA AA/SEG 19May2014
