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GENEVA / UNICEF DRC UPDATE
STORY: GENEVA / UNICEF DRC UPDATE
TRT: 2:18
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / FRENCH /NATS
DATELINE: 12 DECEMBER 2017, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, Palais des nations
2. Wide shot, Press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF):
“At least 400,000 children under five in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and could die in 2018 if they are not urgently reached with lifesaving health and nutrition interventions.”
4. Close up, journalist
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF):
“More than 750,000 children across the region are acutely malnourished, so the 400,000 children are at risk of dying are the ones who are suffering from severe malnutrition. And 25 health zones in the Kasai region are now in a situation of nutritional crisis with emergency thresholds on nutrition exceeded. The true scale of the problem is becoming clear as people are returning home in some areas where the security situation has improved and health services have started functioning again. The violence and displacement of 1.4 million people in the Kasai region has led to food shortages, with two-thirds of households unable to work their land to grow crops. Severe food insecurity is now affecting large parts the region, and conditions are not expected to improve before June 2018. Why? Because the planting seasons in 2017 were lost. Families have little to harvest from their own land and nothing to sell at the markets.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF):
"Approximately 220 health centers in Greater Kasai were destroyed, looted or damaged, leading to a weakening of the health delivery system, reduced access to healthcare and an increased risk in the spread of communicable diseases like for instance, measles which is very dangerous for children."
8. Med shot, UN spokesperson
9. Wide shot, journalists
A spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is deteriorating at an alarming rate, with at least 400,000 children under five in the Kasai region of the country suffering from severe acute malnutrition and could die in 2018 if they are not urgently reached with lifesaving health and nutrition interventions.
In October, the humanitarian community declared the situation in South Kivu, Tanganyika and the Kasai to be a Level-3 emergency, which means that an urgent scale-up of humanitarian assistance, funding and capacity is needed to meet the mounting cases of malnutrition, food insecurity and health epidemics, such as measles and cholera outbreaks, which are stretching the current response capacity of the humanitarian community to breaking point.
Briefing reporters in Geneva Tuesday (12 Dec), Christophe Boulierac, a UNICEF spokesperson stressed that funding was urgently needed in DRC to help desperately malnourished children.
Boulierac said that “More than 750,000 children across the region are acutely malnourished, so the 400,000 children are at risk of dying are the ones who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. And 25 health zones in the Kasai region are now in a situation of nutritional crisis with emergency thresholds on nutrition exceeded.”
He added that “the true scale of the problem is becoming clear as people are returning home in some areas where the security situation has improved and health services have started functioning again. The violence and displacement of 1.4 million people in the Kasai region has led to food shortages, with two-thirds of households unable to work their land to grow crops.”
The security situation has stabilized in parts of the region and some displaced populations have returned to their homes and communities but UN organizations maintain that humanitarian conditions in the region remain critical particularly in terms of food security and health.
Boulierac blamed the severe food insecurity which is now affecting large parts of the region on ongoing violence, mass displacement and reduced agricultural production, and predicted that without funding, “the conditions are not expected to improve before June 2018 because the planting seasons in 2017 were lost. Families have little to harvest from their own land and nothing to sell at the markets.”
The spokesperson also emphasized that guaranteeing access to basic health and nutrition services to returning populations is essential to help malnourished children survive and stem the spread of diseases due to health facilities also having been devastated during the violence as "approximately 220 health centers in Greater Kasai were destroyed, looted or damaged, leading to a weakening of the health delivery system, reduced access to healthcare and an increased risk in the spread of communicable diseases like for instance, measles which is very dangerous for children,"
Since January 2017, UNICEF and its partners have provided therapeutic nutritional care to 50,700 children with severe acute malnutrition, aged between six and 59 months, in the Kasai region. However, only 15 per cent of the funding required to respond to the nutritional needs of children in 2017, has been acquired.
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