1/19/2024–|Last updated: 1/20/202412:02 AM (Mecca time)
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that about 20,000 children were born in the “hell” of the Gaza war since its outbreak on October 7, calling for urgent international action to save the newborns and their mothers.
The organization’s spokeswoman, Tess Ingram, after her recent return from a visit to Gaza, recounted her observations of mothers who bled to death, and a nurse who had to perform caesarean sections on 6 deceased pregnant women.
“There is a baby born every 10 minutes in the middle of this horrific war,” Ingram told reporters in Geneva via video call from Amman.
She added, “Motherhood should be an occasion for celebration. As for Gaza, it is another child going to hell,” stressing the need for urgent international action.
She continued, “Seeing newborn babies suffering, while some mothers bleed to death, should worry us all.”
Ingram also described “heartbreaking” encounters with women experiencing these calamities. One of them, Mashael, was pregnant when her house was bombed, and her husband was trapped under the rubble for several days.
Her fetus has stopped moving since then, and she told Ingram that she is now certain that the fetus died about a month after the bombing, and she is still waiting for medical care, but she says that it is better “not to have a child born into this nightmare.”
Shocking testimonies
Ingram also told the story of a nurse who said she had performed caesarean sections on six deceased women in the past eight weeks.
“Mothers face unimaginable challenges in obtaining adequate medical care, nutrition and protection before, during and after childbirth,” she said.
She added, “The situation of pregnant women and newborns in the Gaza Strip is unimaginable, and requires intensive and immediate measures.”
The UNICEF spokeswoman pointed out that the mortality rate of newborns in Gaza is not yet known.
But she said, “Children are now dying because of the humanitarian crisis on the ground, as well as because of bombs and bullets.”
Ingram indicated that the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, now provides its services to the majority of pregnant women in Gaza.
She revealed that under conditions of overcrowding and limited resources, medical teams are forced to remove mothers from the hospital within 3 hours after a cesarean section.
She said that these conditions expose mothers to the risk of miscarriage, death, stillbirth, premature birth, and psychological trauma.
Ingram stated that pregnant and breastfeeding women and infants live in “inhumane” conditions in makeshift camps, suffer from malnutrition, and risk drinking unsafe water.
She warned that this exposes approximately 135,000 children under the age of two to the risk of acute malnutrition.
“Humanity cannot allow this distorted situation to continue for any longer,” she said. “Mothers and newborn babies need a humanitarian ceasefire.”
