UNITED NATIONS: A month after the two catastrophic earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria, more than 850,000 children remained displaced after being forced from their damaged or destroyed homes amid millions in dire need of aid, UN agencies said.
“Families forced from their homes by the earthquakes have spent the past four weeks focused on survival, their lives on hold while aftershocks continue to rumble,” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia, Afshan Khan, said in a statement.
She said it was now critical “to do all we can to help families begin to rebuild their lives, providing children with psychosocial support, getting them back into learning as soon as possible, and providing some stability amid the chaos.”
At the same time, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reported on Monday that the situation for the 356,000 pregnant women in earthquake-affected areas remained critical, especially the estimated 38,800 who were expected to deliver in the coming weeks.
Hundreds of hospitals and clinics were either damaged or destroyed, and thousands of women and girls were living in over-crowded, makeshift camps exposed to freezing temperatures, UNFPA said, adding that urgent funding was key to keeping thousands healthy during their pregnancy.
The impact of the earthquakes on the region’s children and families, it added, had been catastrophic, leaving hundreds of thousands living in desperate conditions. The combined death toll from the earthquakes and aftershocks had reached more than 50,000 people in both countries, with thousands of others injured and massive destruction to buildings and other essential infrastructure. –Agencies
