Save the Children is still running two clinics in Gaza where they have been receiving and treating children for malnutrition for a long time.
In July, we saw a tenfold increase in children who were then diagnosed with acute malnutrition, says Cecilia Chatterjee-Martinsen at Save the Children and continues:
If you don't get help within the next few days or week after such a diagnosis, you die of starvation and malnutrition.
”Open the borders”
Cecilia Chatterjee-Martinsen says that there is likely to be a large number of unreported cases in the reporting of the number of children who have died as a result of starvation and malnutrition, as some have not come to the hospital and are therefore not included in the hospital's statistics. In addition to the children, 117 adults are said to have died of hunger-related causes.
Information from within Gaza is difficult to verify, as international journalists are not allowed to report from the devastated strip of land. But international organizations have been warning for weeks of an impending famine disaster.
What would then make a difference?
What is required is that the borders are opened, that emergency aid is allowed in, that Israel allows the UN system and the organizations that are on site to do their job, says Cecilia Chatterjee-Martinsen.
But the most important thing is a ceasefire, she says.
Johan von Schreeb, professor of global disaster medicine at the Karolinska Institute, agrees.
”Why is 100 a number to point out. Worse than 72 which is also damn bad. Tomorrow 253, in a week? Open the borders and stop attacking civilians.", writes Johan von Schreeb in a text message to TT.
Acute shortage
Jon Gunnarsson-Ruthman, chairman of Doctors Without Borders Sweden, says that the most acute phase of starvation needs to be treated with therapeutic foods, such as high-energy-enriched milk for small children and peanut paste enriched with vitamins and minerals. But it can't be done in Gaza.
The energy-enriched milk is unfortunately completely finished, he says.
The peanut paste is also starting to suffer from acute shortage around the world due to budget cuts in aid that we are experiencing.
He says that they are life-saving foods when the body has been exposed to starvation, because you have to go slowly in the acute phases.
When the body goes through the acute phase, it cannot absorb nutrients in the same way and the stomachs are so small that you really have to monitor the intake, says Jon Gunnarsson-Ruthman.
