AMMAN, (PIC)
The UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, said doctors in the Gaza Strip noticed that the rate of miscarriage among pregnant women is on the rise in the Strip for no clear reasons, noting that residents of Gaza live in “terrible misery”.
The statements of the UN official came during a brief press conference held in Amman through video technology with journalists accredited by the United Nations headquarters in New York on the occasion of Kaag’s recent return from a visit to Gaza.
Kaag explained that she visited a maternity mobile ward that was just approved for use in Gaza, run by UNFPA to provide birth services, including caesarean operations in “horrific conditions amid anxiety of mothers who are deeply worried about the future of their children.”
She pointed out that she learned from doctors that “the rate of miscarriage, in first and second trimester, is on the rise and the explanations are not clear and they’ll conduct studies into that,” noting that women in the Strip suffer from psychological, physical and health pressure.
She said that she visited at the hospitals “children with severe, often chronic medical conditions that only can be treated if they are medically evacuated out of Gaza,” adding that “a number of these children have been displaced four, five times within Gaza, each time in pursuit of safety and medical shelter.”
She spoke about the challenges related to working in Gaza faced by NGOs and humanitarian organizations including the lack of law and order, difficulty in operating, and issues of access, safety, and security, particularly for Palestinian NGOs, as well as the international NGOs, and the difficulty of the distribution if and when the goods arrive in Gaza.
She hailed the Palestinian NGOs who most of them have lost buildings and working equipment but decided to continue their work to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Kaag stressed the need for an immediate and full ceasefire and continued access to Gaza to start to meet the needs.
