UN’s Lazzarini puts spotlight on Gaza’s ‘pandemic of disabilities’
Gaza counts the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, according to the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
One in four people injured during the war sustained life-changing injuries and will need rehabilitation services, including care for amputations and spinal cord injuries, Philippe Lazzarini said, citing the World Health Organization.
Lazzarini also shed light on the people needing special care “who have suffered in silence” during this conflict, noting that one in five families surveyed before October 7 had at least one person with disabilities.
#Gaza, a pandemic of #disabilities.
Before the war, one in five families surveyed had at least one person with disabilities. Nearly half of them included a child with disabilities.
During this war, people needing special care have suffered in silence.
Their stories rarely… pic.twitter.com/oLh4GDKgi6
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 3, 2024
‘How many days, Mum, until my hand grows back?’
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has highlighted the plight of Gaza’s child amputees.
One of many children, who have lost limbs in the 14 months of Israeli attacks in the Palestinian enclave, is six-year-old Sidra. “How many days, Mum, until my hand grows back?” she keeps asking her mother at a shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to UNRWA.
We have reported earlier that Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA chief, said Gaza counts the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.
“How many days, Mom, until my hand grows back?” asks Sidra, 6, who was injured in a bombing at the Nuseirat shelter in #Gaza.
After 14 months of strikes and shelling, Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world. Many of these children have… pic.twitter.com/APNIRy8lTY
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 3, 2024
The plight of disabled Palestinians in Gaza
Ahmed Al Toha is a disabled Palestinian child.
He says he is hungry and has been on the move since he fled from his home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. “Having to move with disability is extremely difficult. One night, we were surprised by advancing tanks near the house where we were staying in Khan Younis. We ran under fire in utter darkness,” he told Al Jazeera.
“My uncle carried me through the streets and fields until we reached a safer area. It was a terrifying night.”
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