Guterres calls for urgent evacuation of 2,500 Gaza children
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on January 30th called for the immediate evacuation of 2,500 children from Gaza for medical treatment, The New Arab via Reuters reported.
The statement followed a meeting with US doctors who recently volunteered in Gaza and reported dire conditions for injured children.
The four doctors had worked in Gaza during Israel’s 15-month-long bombardment, which has devastated the enclave and its healthcare system. To support its recovery, Jordan’s air force launched the biggest air bridge so far to deliver urgent medical supplies to Gazan hospitals and medical centres, Middle East Online via Reuters reported on January 29th.
Before the ceasefire took effect, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that over 12,000 patients were awaiting medical evacuation.
“Under this ceasefire agreement, there is supposed to be a mechanism in place for medical evacuations. We’ve still not seen that process spelled out,” said Thaer Ahmad, an emergency room doctor from Chicago who volunteered in Gaza during January last year.
Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who worked in Gaza between March and April of last year, said: “There’s about 2,500 children who are at imminent risk of death in the next few weeks. Some are dying right now. Some will die tomorrow. Some will die the next day.”
Ayesha Khan, an emergency doctor at Stanford University Hospital, treated Gazan children during the end of November until January 1st. She described a severe lack of prosthetics and rehabilitation for children who had undergone amputations. Holding up a photo of two young sisters who had lost limbs and were sharing a wheelchair, she said: “Their only chance for survival is to be medically evacuated.”
Khan also highlighted that current security restrictions don’t allow children to travel with multiple caregivers. She said: “Their caregiver is their aunt, who has a baby that she is breast-feeding. So even though we were able to… get evacuation set up for them, they won’t let the aunt take her baby with her. So the aunt has to choose between the baby she’s breast-feeding and the lives of her two nieces.”
After meeting with the doctors, Guterres said he was “deeply moved” by their accounts and took to X to demand that the 2,500 children be “immediately evacuated with the guarantee that they will be able to return to their families and communities.”
COGAT, the Israeli defence agency responsible for liaising with Palestinian authorities, did not respond to a request for comment on the demand for medical evacuations and nor did Israel’s mission to the UN.
The WHO reported that before the ceasefire, 5,383 patients had been evacuated since the war started in October 2023. The majority were transported in the first seven months, prior to the closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
The New Arab via Reuters, Middle East Online via Reuters
