THERE has long been little doubt the Coronavirus pandemic is a global emergency. If there is one thing that this emergency has taught us– we are more connected than we ever imagined. From the UK, to Italy, to China, to Yemen, Covid-19 does not discriminate based on where we live.
The virus may not discriminate, but it impacts in a much more devastating way in the most vulnerable communities – those lacking healthcare, sanitation and food and even the most basic infrastructure.
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The Disasters Emergency Committee and its 14 UK aid charities are urgently seeking funds to respond in seven key countries where there are millions of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees facing the Covid threat with nothing like the resources of the NHS and the other informal support networks we’ve counted on during the lockdown here in Scotland.
Suha, an aid worker with CARE in Yemen said:
“People have fled their homes due to the conflict here. Sometimes they are not even living in complete tents, just pieces of fabric on top of paper. And now they have to face the risk of getting sick with coronavirus. They are saying that they have a cruel choice – to stay at home and starve or go out and get coronavirus.”
Yemen has the largest humanitarian crisis in the world with 80% of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, including 12 million children. It now faces an “emergency within an emergency”.
This week, there are only 1,520 ‘official’ Covid-19 cases and 430 deaths, yet this is a likely to be a huge underestimate due to a lack of testing.
With a population already affected by many infectious diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, dengue, and chikungunya, compromised immune systems and shortages of food and water mean people are much more susceptible to the virus.
Statistics modelling suggests there could be up to 10 million people infected, with between 62,000 and 85,000 deaths in the worst-case scenario.
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With DEC funding the Yemeni Red Crescent can continue to improve the conditions of people in quarantine and isolation facilities by supplying food, medicines, PPE as well as personal hygiene and cleaning items.
Mustafa Syria, an aid worker with CAFOD living in a camp with displaced people outside the virtually destroyed strategic city of Idlib in North West Syria:
“My heart is beating so hard, we are expecting an explosion of coronavirus in the camps. The next 10 days are really critical for us. Doctors are preparing for the spread of the virus. People live in large overcrowded settlements in tents with maybe 12 people and no access to clean water. It will be a catastrophe. Disaster. Please help them.”
Syria is in its 10th year of a civil war which has killed at least 224,000 civilians, 29,000 of them children. More than 11 million people are estimated to need humanitarian assistance, with the UN continuing its demands for an immediate ceasefire to allow an unrestricted response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Areas of greatest concern are crowded internal displacement camps in and around Idlib and Al Hasakeh in the North East, where prevention measures are hard to enforce and little health support.
Dr Fariba Mahaki is part of a World Vision’s Mobile Health and Nutrition Team working in Afghanistan:
“IDPs have fewer sanitation facilities so they are more susceptible to Coronavirus. With our commitment, we accept the risk and we are ready to serve people to be more secure, especially women and children.”
Decades of conflict have had a severe impact on Afghanistan’s infrastructure, the number of displaced people and of course their resilience. The World Health Organisations says that Afghanistan could be one of the countries most affected by the pandemic.
The outbreak has now spread to 33 out of 34 provinces.
The main hospital in the Southern province of Zabul was abandoned after a Taliban attack last September, what remains has been converted to a Covid-19 isolation centre.
With DEC funds, World Vision can continue to provide health services for Internal Displaced Population, particularly children as key information to communities to control the spread of the virus.
Every day Ameena*, who is 8, spends hours with other neighbours of the Rohingya camp, Bangladesh in the queue for collecting drinking water:
“My family live up in the hill. We do not have any water supply there. I have to queue hours for collecting drinking water. I have heard about the virus. We have to wash our hands and face after reaching to our tent. But none of us could wash our hands regularly because we have limited water for drinking, if we waste water by washing hands, I have to spend entire day queuing for water”
Some 855,000 Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar in 2017, live in 34 extremely congested camps, collectively the largest refugee population in the world.
With DEC funding, the International Red Cross and Bangladesh Red Crescent, can bolster operations at two isolation field hospitals in Cox’s Bazar. They can also supply thousands of masks and hundreds of hand sanitizers to the staff working in the camp. They can also fund hundreds of volunteers to make individual visits in the camp to keep people informed about the pandemic.
Abbas* uses ash and soil to washes his hands outside his makeshift home at Xidig camp in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Civil war, insecurity, poverty, recurrent natural disasters and famine have resulted in in the country, along with South Sudan, ranked the second most ‘fragile’ state in the world.
Less than 10% of homes have basic handwashing facilities with soap and water and the most common method for people to clean their hands is to use ash.
Here too, it’s believed the numbers of people infected are hugely underestimated and at the start of the outbreak in March, the country had no ventilators and an acute shortage of healthcare workers.
Internal displacement is fuelling Somalia’s rapid urbanisation, as people who struggle to survive and make a living in rural areas seek opportunities living in camps set up across urban areas.
Alawia, 42, has 11 children and is a refugee from Sudan:
“This disease is a threat to children because they go out and play with each other. Most of their games involve body contact, which I often cannot control when I am out working the farm. It scares me.”
Alawia crossed and sought refuge to South Sudan in 2017 following the conflict in Sudan. “I got separated from my 8-year old son who took the animals for grazing.”
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Just like the majority of refugee women in Makpandu Refugee Camp, Alawia also lost touch with her husband who was a soldier when the conflict broke out in her village. “I do not know if he is still alive. I live alone with the children but I keep assuring them he will join us one day.”
In South Sudan, more than five years of civil war have led to widespread human rights violations, and food scarcity, together with floods and swarms of locust, there has been large-scale internal migration with thousands seeking refuge in Sudan and Uganda.
Inter-communal clashes, together with lockdown measures are creating huge challenges for the humanitarian response here.
Hebdavi is a Tearfund manager in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
"Never have I seen the number of funerals I see now. Cemeteries are running out of space.
“When I visited the camp for displaced people, I had tears in my eyes. Families had fled on foot. Some were wounded, children, pregnant women. They had fled violence for a plastic sheeting home.
"They don’t have the luxury of social distancing. The worst is yet to come. We need to protect people from what we are fearing. That’s why we need your support."
Disease affects the DRC, like no other country. As the rest of the world began to see the spread of coronavirus, health officials in Ituri and North-Kivu provinces thought they were on top of an Ebola outbreak that had killed 2,200 people since August 2018.
At the same time a measles epidemic has killed over 6,000 people since the start of 2019. Coronavirus is the latest health challenge for an already weak and pressured health system and already the DRC has seen 8,134 confirmed cases and 189 deaths
An * shows the name has been changed to protect that person's identity.
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