GENEVA, June 25: Ten children per day are losing one or both of their legs in the war in Gaza, the head of the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said Tuesday.
"Basically we have every day 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva.
Citing figures from the UN childrens agency UNICEF, he said that figure "does not even include the arms and the hands, and we have many more" of these.
"Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days of this brutal war," Lazzarini said.
He said amputation often takes place "in quite horrible conditions", sometimes without anaesthesia.
Save the Children said on Monday that up to 21,000 children are estimated to be missing in the chaos of the war. —AFP
