400,000 Children Dying in Afghanistan

<strong>More than 100,000 children could die in Afghanistan: UNICEF</strong><br><br>

Islamabad, Oct 17, IRNA - Up to 100,000 more children will die this
winter in Afghanistan if aid does not reach them in sufficient
quantities in the next few weeks, the head of UNICEF Afghanistan, Eric
Larouche, has said.
<br><br>
The mortality rate for Afghan children could jump by a third this
winter, he warned.
<br><br>
"The reason that I say 'more' is because 300,000 Afghan children
already die each year, largely of preventable causes, [such as]
measles, exposure, severe malnutrition, or diarrhoea that can be cured
with a 10-cent sachet of oral rehydration salts," he said.
<br><br>
Speaking to journalists in Islamabad, Larouche said Afghan
children were 25 times more likely to die before the age of five than
an American, French or Saudi Arabian child. "Every 30 minutes, a young
Afghan mother dies giving birth, leaving children with an
irreplaceable void," he said, adding that more than half of Afghan
children were currently malnourished.
<br><br>
According to a UNICEF survey in 1997, 95 percent of children
living in Kabul had witnessed violence with their own eyes, seven out
of 10 had lost a family member, and 90 percent believed that they
would die during the fighting.
<br><br>
Larouche said Afghan children were the most traumatised in the
world.
<br><br>
Despite all the conventions ratified internationally that call
for their protection, another generation of Afghan children was
witnessing and enduring the violence of war, he said.
<br><br>
"We continue to fail them, and in fact mock them, I would say,
with a sympathy that fails to bear fruit," he said. As UNICEF
struggles to provide emergency aid inside Afghanistan along with other
international organisations, Larouche noted that only half the US $36
million requested by UNICEF in response to the Afghan crisis had been
received to date.
<br><br>