New York, April 7 (BNA): Two months after two devastating earthquakes struck Turkey and northern Syria, 2.5 million children in Turkey still need humanitarian support and are at risk of poverty, child labor or child marriage, UNICEF warned today.
“Children’s lives have been turned upside down by the earthquakes, and while the humanitarian response has been swift and significant, the reality is that the immediate future for millions of children remains uncertain, with families able to begin to recover the parts of their lives desperately needed,” said Regina de Dominicis, UNICEF Representative in Turkey. “
“More support is vital to ensuring that children are protected and that their needs are met as an essential part of recovery,” she added.
As part of the immediate response, UNICEF worked closely with partners to prevent family separation and support family reunification and reached more than 149,000 children and caregivers with psychosocial support. These efforts must continue and child protection services must be maintained without interruption.
UNICEF is also providing support by providing vaccines including polio (covering 360,000 children) and diphtheria and tetanus vaccines (covering more than 283,000 children). UNICEF is also providing additional medical equipment and supplies.
More than 390,000 people received hygiene kits, winter clothes, electric heaters and blankets. Access to safe and clean water remains a major concern while repairing damaged water systems.
UNICEF has delivered water to thousands of people and is rapidly scaling up this work with partners.
The earthquakes affected the lives of nearly four million children enrolled in schools, including 350,000 refugee and migrant children. Nearly 1.5 million children have resumed their education in the earthquake-affected areas, with 250,000 children continuing their education after moving elsewhere in the country.
However, many others have not yet regained full access to learning, with formal schools still open in the hardest-hit provinces.
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