Children in the mountains at risk warns UNICEF

Tens of thousands of children remained cold, hungry and vulnerable to disease in remote parts of earthquake-affected Pakistan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday. “There are still casualties coming in. We don’t know what the numbers are but we still believe there are many people left up in the high regions of the mountains - including women, children and elderly people,” UNICEF communications officer Katey Grusovin said from the badly damaged city of Mansehra in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), not far from the quake’s epicentre. More than 40,000 people were killed when the devastating quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale ripped through much of Pakistan’s north on 8 October. But 12 days after the quake, with jolts and aftershocks continuing daily, many children have been left outdoors and afraid. “That means they are exposed to the elements,” Grusovin said, warning of diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections, measles and tetanus. “There is an urgency to get aid to people.” Her comments coincide with a warning by the UN agency that as many as 120,000 children have yet to be reached in the mountains on the Pakistan side of the line of control separating the disputed region of Kashmir with India. About 10,000 could die of hunger, hypothermia and disease within the next few weeks, UNICEF warned, adding children would be the first victims in a second wave of fatalities. “The relief effort is becoming more complex with each passing day,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, speaking from Copenhagen during a visit to the agency’s global supply warehouse. “There are still too few helicopters to reach more than 1,000 remote villages with life-saving supplies that children urgently need.” Temperatures had dropped and weather conditions worsened, Veneman said, adding access to affected areas had been hampered by roads clogged with mud and people fleeing the mountains with their injured. “Tens of thousands of children are at risk,” she said. In Mansehra, Grusovin said the challenge ahead was immense. “I think everyone has been caught by the monumental scale of the disaster,” she said, while noting aid was slowly coming through. “The pipeline is starting to work through a concerted effort by the UN, NGOs and the military. “There is a need for more of everything,” she added.