OVER a week since a massive earthquake rocked the country, fear is not fading for the children of Nepal. Something as simple as a bang of a door can send them fleeing for cover. And the continuing aftershocks are a constant jolt back to the events of April 25.
I arrived in Nepal just after the quake hit to assist with Unicef’s emergency response. Every day, I meet children with heartbreaking stories.
In Pakhtapur, an area where family homes and beautiful temples have dissolved into rubble, children are living under tarpaulin, in temporary shelters in the middle of a square. Some of the surrounding houses have their entire front walls torn off. It’s like peering into dolls’ houses, with people’s personal possessions exposed to public view, dangling amidst the bricks.
Ten-year-old Shronal used to live nearby. He told me he was sitting down to eat as the quake hit. Suddenly he was thrown to the floor, his plate flying across the room. He thought he was going to die.
He told me he had clung to his grandfather and cried. His house is riddled with cracks. He couldn’t return home if he wanted to, but he told me he would be too afraid to do so.
Life has changed forever for children in so many ways. Colleagues have met children with terrible injuries – a girl whose tongue was cut in half by the jolt of the tremor, another whose hips were broken. One small girl was left an amputee, pulled out of the rubble alive after more than 36 hours among dead bodies.
Some 1.7 million children in the hardest-hit areas are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Providing clean water – to cut the risk of disease outbreaks – is a major concern, as is shelter, to protect people from the sun and rain. Hospitals have also sustained huge damage, with many forced to treat people in the streets.
Unicef staff in Nepal – many of whom had terrifying experiences in the earthquake themselves – are working round the clock for children.
They are providing life-saving aid including clean water, shelter and sanitation, reaching remote areas outside of the Kathmandu valley, areas that are some of the worst-hit.
And it’s not just supplies children need. They need to be kept safe from harm and be given support to help them deal with their experiences. Colleagues are opening up child-friendly spaces in camps – safe places where children can play, receive psychological support and get back to learning. At one such space in Tundikhel I met children receiving psychological support and drawing pictures of their experiences.
The stories of survival and suffering, and the numbers of dead and injured, are growing every day. The children of Nepal desperately need support.
You can donate to The National’s appeal to support Unicef in Nepal by texting GIVE to 70123 to give £5
Visit unicef.org.uk/nepal
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