GENEVA: UN agencies on Friday called for two seven-day breaks in the fighting in Gaza to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against polio, which has been detected in the wastewater.
The UN’s health and children’s agencies said they had drawn up detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory, starting later this month.
But that would require pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said.
They said they were planning two rounds of a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).
Last month, it was announced that type 2 poliovirus had been detected in environmental surveillance samples collected in Gaza on June 23.
“WHO and UNICEF request all parties to the conflict to implement humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip for seven days to allow for two rounds of vaccination campaigns to take place,” they said.
A WHO spokeswoman said they were asking for seven days during each round.
“These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination,” the statement said.
“Without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”
“The Gaza Strip has been polio-free for the last 25 years,” said the WHO and UNICEF.
“Its re-emergence, which the humanitarian community has warned about for the last 10 months, represents yet another threat to the children in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries.
“A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region.”
During each round of the campaign, the health ministry in Gaza, alongside UN agencies, would provide “two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age.”
More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2 were expected to transit through Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport “by the end of August,” the statement added.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
On Thursday the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza passed 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.
UN wants brief Gaza truces to vaccinate children against polio
https://arab.news/6kd8f
UN wants brief Gaza truces to vaccinate children against polio
- UN had drawn up detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory
- UN planning two rounds of a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip
UK slaps sanctions on Sudan RSF paramilitary deputy, other commanders
- The Foreign Office in London said those targeted include RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo
- They are accused of “mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians”
LONDON: The UK Friday imposed sanctions on senior commanders of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) suspected of “heinous violence” in the Darfur hub of El-Fasher, which the paramilitary group captured in October.
The Foreign Office in London said those targeted include RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, whose brother Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo is the group’s leader, as well as three other commanders.
They are accused of “mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians” when the RSF dislodged the Sudanese army from El-Fasher, its last stronghold in the western Darfur region.
They now face UK asset freezes and travel bans.
The government said the RSF’s actions in El-Fasher were “not random” but instead “part of a deliberate strategy to terrorize populations and seize control through fear and violence.”
It added satellite imagery showed evidence of mass graves where victims have been burned and buried, and the sanctions send “a clear message that those who commit atrocities will be held to account.”
The European Union last month also slapped sanctions on Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo.
In a statement unveiling the UK curbs, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the atrocities taking place in Sudan “are so horrific they scar the conscience of the world.”
“The overwhelming evidence of heinous crimes — mass executions, starvation, and the systematic and calculated use of rape as a weapon of war — cannot and will not go unpunished,” she added.
“The UK will not look away, and we will always stand with the people of Sudan.”
Minni Minawi, the army-aligned governor of Darfur, welcomed the UK sanctions “as an important step toward holding accountable those responsible for the crimes and violations witnessed in Sudan in recent times.”
But he added the measures “remain incomplete” unless they also target Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, “as he is the decision-maker and the direct architect of the violence system.”
London also announced Friday £21 million ($28 million) in additional aid to provide food, clean water, health care, and protection for women and children in areas of Sudan hardest hit by violence.
It said the financial package took UK aid spending in Sudan this year to £146 million.
