A year after devastating floods, four million children in Pakistan need access to clean water.
Four million Pakistan children still lack access to potable water one year after devastating floods decimated large portions of the country, the UN agency for children has warned.
In a news release on Friday, UNICEF said it estimated that 8 million people in the nation—about half of whom are children—remain without access to clean water in flood-affected areas.
According to Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan, “vulnerable children living in flood-affected areas have endured a horrific year.”
They suffered the loss of their homes, places of education, and loved ones. The threat of yet another climate catastrophe grows as the monsoon rains start up again. Recovery operations go on, but many people are still unreachable, and Pakistani children run the risk of being forgotten.
More than a third of the almost 1,600 people who died last year due to flooding in Pakistan’s northern mountain regions as a result of unprecedented monsoon rains and melting glaciers were youngsters. An additional 33 million people were also affected.
Tens of thousands of people were left stuck on the roads without access to food or clean water as the floods inundated a third of the country and washed away homes.
Pakistan
According to UNICEF, 4,300 water systems, 2,000 health facilities, and 30,000 schools suffered damage or total destruction.
According to UNICEF, the calamity caused by climate change “deepened pre-existing inequities for children and families in affected districts.” Before the floods, one-third of children were out of school. Malnutrition had reached crisis proportions, and access to sanitary facilities. And potable drinking water was worrisomely limited.
Numerous water-related infections started to infect thousands of people, many of whom were youngsters, as the floodwaters started to subside. Parents made frantic attempts to get assistance when their kids developed diarrhea, dysentery, dengue fever, and malaria.
Read More: The fires completely destroyed a lot of eateries on Maui.
