Potable water and psychosocial support for child victims most needed in quake-hit Sulawesi.
Body: Psychosocial help also sought for child survivors
KUALA LUMPUR: It’s not food or clothes that is the immediate need of victims of the Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami.
What is most needed is access to potable water, besides psychosocial support for child victims.
Unicef communications chief for Malaysia Laurent Duvillier said based on previous experiences, water was most critical as most people could not survive beyond three days without it.
He said Unicef was appealing globally for US$5mil (RM21mil) to cover education, health, nutrition, sanitation and child protection needs for the crisis situation there.
“This amount will almost certainly increase as needs on the ground evolve. We appeal for help from Malaysians,’’ he said yesterday.
As at Wednesday, he said 1,407 had died with about 2,550 persons injured. A total of 113 are missing.
About 71,000 people were internally displaced when fleeing the earthquake and tsunami, and were scattered across 140 locations, some with only the clothes on their back.
“The worry is that these areas were already at risk even before the disasters, and now a lot of roads and bridges have been damaged.
“Our teams are on the ground to assess the needs of each locale in Sulawesi, so that we can effectively channel aid,” said Duvillier.
He said children were especially at risk as they were already vulnerable before the tsunami, adding that 43% of the child population lived in poverty and 41% suffered chronic malnutrition and stunting.
“One of the things we are doing now is to provide psychosocial support by instituting ‘child-safe spaces’, where the children can play and stay while their parents go out to fetch water or food,” he added.
For details on Unicef Malaysia and how you can donate, visit https:// www.facebook.com/unicef.malaysia/ or www.unicef.org/malaysia